NEW research into lung diseases is to be mounted by doctors at Glasgow University and the Western Infirmary with the backing of the charity Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland.
Theirs are among a range of projects announced yesterday for which CHSS are providing grants totalling #412,000.
Dr Andrew Peacock, who is investigating why 350,000 patients die each year in the UK from chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and similar lung diseases, will be looking at the common thread linking these diseases - hypoxia, or low levels of oxygen, in the lung.
This causes high blood pressure in the lung circulation, putting a strain on the heart and causing it to fail. It is caused in part by thickening of the blood vessels in the lungs, due to overgrowth of cells.
However, cells from outside the lungs, that is, in the systemic circulation, do not increase their growth when faced with low levels of oxygen.
Dr Peacock, a consultant in the Department of Respiratory Medicine, has been awarded #58,000 over two years for a study which will compare the processes which signal growth in response to hypoxia in the two types of cell.
Identifying the differences will help to develop a treatment that prevents the growth of the lung vessel cells without affecting the cells elsewhere in the body.
Dr George Chalmers, at the Asthma Research Unit based at the Western Infirmary and Gartnavel General Hospital, has been awarded the CHSS Research Fellowship - worth #77,000 over two years - to investigate the role of smoking in impairing treatment of lung disease.
It is known that smoking not only causes lung disease, but can also hinder the action of drugs used to treat diseases like asthma and chronic bronchitis.
Samples of lung secretions from patients will be analysed, allowing the study of some of the chemicals produced in the lungs in response to cigarette smoking.
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