BHF - Sheffield scientist makes important discovery
15 Oct 2012 03:17 PM
A scientist we support at the University of Sheffield has made an important finding in the fight against a rare but devastating condition of high blood pressure in the lungs.
Dr Abdul Hameed is supported by one of our Clinical Research Training Fellowships. These awards are given to doctors to carry out original research, which could help find new treatments or improve care for patients in the future.
Thanks to your donations, we awarded more than £170,000 to support Dr Hameed in his project to understand the causes of pulmonary arterial hypertension. After three years of hard work his team - led by Dr Allan Lawrie - have found that tackling a protein called TRAIL could hold hope for helping those affected by the disease.
BHF's Research Advisor Dr Shannon Amoils said:
We urgently need to find new treatments for people with pulmonary arterial hypertension
“We urgently need to find new treatments for people with pulmonary arterial hypertension, a condition which can have a devastating effect on people’s quality of life and is often fatal. This study shows that a protein called TRAIL has a role in the disease by driving the overproduction of cells lining the lungs’ blood vessels. This overproduction of cells is one of the factors leading to high blood pressure in the lungs.“Importantly, the researchers show that, in rodents, blocking TRAIL using an antibody dampens down this high cell turnover and reduces the disease severity. There is still a long way to go, but the hope is that the TRAIL antibody might be developed into a new treatment for patients in the future.”
Earlier this year, Dr Hameed won a prestigious Young Investigator Award from the British Society for Cardiovascular Research for his work studying TRAIL in pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Since the beginning of last year, we've awarded more than £1m to research in Sheffield. Top cardiovascular researchers there include zebrafish expert Dr Tim Chico and Professor Paul Evans. But we couldn't fund our research without your support. Please donate to help fund our life-saving science.