Inflammation in the lungs is linked to many lung conditions including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis and neonatal chronic lung disease. Evidence suggests that this inflammation might be due, in part, to problems with the body’s immune system. More specifically, initial research has suggested that damage or loss of a protective molecule called ‘surfactant protein D’ (SP-D) may be key.
With BLF funding, Dr Howard Clark and his team used cutting edge molecular biology techniques to investigate how SP-D might protect our lungs, and how a lack of SP-D might lead to the inflammation seen in diseases like COPD.
This work has identified some of the effects that this lack of SP-D has on the lungs. Importantly, the team also found that SP-D can indeed help to prevent the damage caused by the inflammation seen in lung disease. The team also produced a version of SP-D in the laboratory, which may be useful as a therapy in future.
Further work is now needed to gain a deeper understanding of this process and to establish whether SP-D might be a useful therapy in the prevention and treatment of inflammatory lung disease.
Dr Clark is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. His main interest is harnessing the lungs’ own immune defences to develop new therapies for lung disease.
