News

Mesenchymal stem cells can aid in treating autoimmune-related lung fibrosis by changing the composition of T-cells from a mainly toxic to a more regulatory type. The beneficial effects observed in the study were induced by the surprising contribution of TGF-β1 — a molecule normally considered strongly pro-fibrotic, indicating that treatments…

ProterixBio, Inc., is the new name for the company previously known as BioScale, Inc., reflecting a change in strategy. Whereas BioScale had focused on care management solutions for pulmonary and other diseases, ProterixBio will specialize in high-value clinical applications, such as diagnostic products and disease management services, with a…

Patara Pharma has announced the appointment of John Schmid to its Board of Directors. The company’s lead product, PA101B, is a potential  treatment for pulmonary fibrosis and moving through clinical trials. “John joins Patara’s board at a pivotal time as we advance our flagship program, PA101B, through multiple Phase 2 studies to improve…

More effective treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is needed for reasons as solidly grounded in economics as they are in basic healthcare, a study published in the Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy points out — showing that acute exacerbations and disease-related hospitalizations in lung fibrosis patients are associated with high…

Drugs targeting a pathway centered on a molecule named PI3K and a mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) — another molecule in the same pathway — are in early, preclinical tests in a variety of disease conditions, and recently completed a Phase 1 cancer trial. A study from University College London  also found that…

Scientists from the Karolinska University Hospital, Sweden, reported findings from the first year of a national registry of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis patients (IPF), which showed that Swedish IPF patients have a poor quality of life and poor perception of their disease — despite a relatively modest level of disease severity.

A case report of a woman with pulmonary fibrosis and a rare telomere mutation raised the possibility that telomere-associated fibrosis can be observed without shortened telomeres. The study, “TINF2 Gene Mutation in a Patient with Pulmonary Fibrosis“, published in the journal Case Reports in Pulmonology, proposed that…

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and other institutions applied an integrative genomic approach to study chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) to uncover the possible shared biological mechanisms in the two disorders. Findings suggested a common genetic network to the…

Researchers at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, found that CD248 — a surface marker expressed on fibroblast cells in the lung — might also serve as a marker of disease severity in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). The findings also indicate that CD248 might be a suitable…

Researchers at the University of Southampton used an advanced, 3-D X-ray imaging technology for a first time on lung tissue samples from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) patients, gaining a better understanding of how the aggressive lung disease develops in the body. The study, “Three-dimensional characterization of fibroblast foci in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis” was published…