Asthma cure 'could happen in five or six years' after scientists discover cause


Breakthrough: Asthma cure is on horizon
A cure for asthma could be on the horizon after scientists discovered a protein that is the root cause of a condition that blights the lives of more than five millions Brits.
Experts have described the breakthrough as "hugely exciting" and say it could lead to a class of drugs originally developed for osteoporosis reversing narrowing, twitchiness and inflammation in the lungs - all of which contribute to increased breathing difficulties.
Experiments on mice and human airway tissue from asthmatics and healthy people identified the gene CaSR (calcium sensing receptor) as causing asthma that affects 300 million people across the world
Professor Daniela Riccardi, of Cardiff University, said: "Our findings are incredibly exciting. For the first time we have found a link between airways inflammation which can be caused by environmental triggers - such as allergens, cigarette smoke and car fumes - and airways twitchiness in allergic asthma.
"Our paper shows how these triggers release chemicals that activate CaSR in airway tissue and drive asthma symptoms like airway twitchiness, inflammation and narrowing. Using calcilytics - nebulized directly into the lungs - we show it's possible to deactivate CaSR and prevent all of these symptoms.
SUNDAY MERCURY car fumes in traffic and pollution
"If we replicate our study in human clinical trials it will be better than any drugs either out there already or being worked on. We are talking about a cure - and we hope this could happen in five or six years."
Prof Riccardi had spent most of her career studying osteoporosis and came across the protein's mystery role "completely out of the blue" when she began working on asthma only five years ago.
Calcilytics were first developed for the treatment of osteoporosis around 15 years ago with the aim of strengthening deteriorating bone by targeting CaSR to induce the release of an anabolic hormone.
But although clinically safe and well tolerated in people they proved unsuccessful in treating the bone wasting disease.
But the latest findings, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, has provided researchers with the unique opportunity to re-purpose these drugs - potentially accelerating the time it takes for them to be approved for use in asthma patients.

Asthma

1.1million
Lost days to breathing problems in 2008/09
Prof Riccadi said: "We need about £10 million for the patient trials and are talking to potential investors.
"It sounds a lot of money, but when you consider how many people asthma affects - and the cost of treating it - it's a drop in the ocean."
The NHS spends around £1 billion a year treating and caring for people with asthma. In 2008/09 up to 1.1 million working days were lost due to breathing or lung problems. Once funding has been secured the researchers aim to be carrying out clinical trials on humans within two years.
Dr Samantha Walker, director of research and policy at Asthma UK who part-funded the research, said: "This hugely exciting discovery enables us - for the first time - to tackle the underlying causes of asthma symptoms.
"Five per cent of people with asthma don't respond to current treatments so research breakthroughs could be life changing for hundreds of thousands of people.
"If this research proves successful we may be just a few years away from a new treatment for asthma and we urgently need further investment to take it further through clinical trials.
"Asthma research is chronically underfunded; there have only been a handful of new treatments developed in the last 50 years so the importance of investment in research like this is absolutely essential."
PA Asthma
While asthma is well controlled in some people around one-in-twelve respond poorly to current drugs - accounting for around 90% of healthcare costs associated with the condition.
Study co-author Professor Paul Kemp said the identification of CaSR in airway tissue means the potential for treatment of other inflammatory lung diseases beyond asthma is immense.
These include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and chronic bronchitis for which currently there exists no cure. It's predicted by 2020 these diseases will be the third biggest killers worldwide.
Prof Riccardi and her colleagues are now seeking funding to determine the efficacy of calcilytic drugs on especially difficult to treat asthmas - particularly those resistant to steroids or exacerbated by influenza - and to test them on patients.
She said: "If we can prove calcilytics are safe when administered directly to the lung in people then in five years we could be in a position to treat patients and potentially stop asthma from happening in the first place."
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