Medicine to restore alveoli

Professor Reinoud Gosens of the Groningen Research Institute of Pharmacy (GRIP), together with an international team of top researchers, is working on an answer to the question: why do the alveoli in people with COPD not recover? The research by Gosens and his team is called 'On a voyage of discovery to the dark side of the lung'. If this side of the lung reveals that secret, the dream of countless people with a lung disease comes closer: permanent lung recovery and no more shortness of breath.

Progenitor cells are found in the lungs. These are cells that resemble stem cells. Together with other lung cells, they ensure the recovery of lung tissue after damage. In people with COPD, the growth factors that stimulate the progenitor cells to repair are not doing well enough. That is why it is important that new drugs are introduced that ensure that the lung tissue recovers.

Reinoud Gosens and his team studied how the genes in the lungs of people with COPD behave. This allowed them to look for possible medicines, which they then tested on a 'mini-lung'. Read the full news item and about the research results on the Longfonds (Lung fund) website.