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A New Way to Develop Severe Asthma Therapy
Office of Information | 2018-07-27 | 조회 4444
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Bronchial asthma is a disease that affects more than 300 million people worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates that the death toll from severe bronchial asthma will reach 300,000 people annually. Steroids are currently used as a treatment for this problem but systemic side effects are severe, so new therapies are urgently needed.
An important mechanism for treating severe bronchial asthma without side effects has been developed by Professor Yong Chul Lee’s team of Chonbuk National University, spotlighted in the world academy.
The team's findings on severe refractory asthma and its treatment have been published in the worldwide respiratory journal Thorax (IF 9.655) recently.
In this study, researchers found that the activation of the phosphoinositide-3 kinase (PI3K) delta subtype is important for allergic airway inflammation through the innate immune regulation of bronchial epithelial cells. In other words, activation of this enzyme in epithelial cells increases airway inflammation.
In particular, the team found that lung inflammation in severe asthmatic animal models that did not respond to conventional steroids was significantly improved by the administration of inhibitors of the delta subtype of PI3K.
"The results of the study provides an important background for future treatment of severe asthma," Prof. Lee said.
The editorial committee of Thorax also highlighted the importance of this study by covering the findings as the 'Highlights From This Issue', comparing it to the “1986 Mexico World Cup semi-final match between England and Argentina”. The results were published in the journal in 2016 and 2018.
This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, with the participation of Doctors Jae Seok Jeong, Kyung Bae Lee, So Ri Kim, Dong Im Kim, Hae Jin Park, Hern-Ku Lee, Hyung Jin Kim (Chonbuk National University), Seong Ho Cho, Narasaiah Kolliputi, (University of South Florida), and Soon Ha Kim (LG Life Sciences Ltd.) in correspondence with Professor Yong Chul Lee.
In addition, first author, Jae Seok Jeong was the first clinical researcher supported by Chonbuk National University Medical School’s ‘clinical professor training program’. As a result of the global research achievement through this program, it can be said that the efforts of the CBNU Medical School and CBNU Hospital have been fruitful for the enhancement of research capacity.