A University of Alabama at Birmingham professor has been awarded a $7 million grant for his research involving pathogenic exosomes in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
J. Edwin Blalock, professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine, received the R35 Outstanding Investigator grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the NIH for his project, which it titled “Pathogenic Exosomes in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.”
This project describes a new extracellular entity, the pathogenic exosome, that is found in the lungs of all COPD patients but does not appear in the lungs of people who have never smoked. This type of exosome drives chronic inflammation, tissue damage and cell death.
“For patients, these exosomes may represent a new and simple way to diagnose COPD,” Blalock said. “Disarming the exosome-associated proteases could be a new therapy for the disease.”
The pathogenic exosomes could predict who is likely to develop COPD.
