Investigating Innate and Adaptive Immunity in CF
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Investigating Innate and Adaptive Immunity in Cystic Fibrosis
IRAS ID
261543
Contact name
Robert D Gray
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Edinburgh
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Lung damage is a key feature of CF and in part this is due to the actions of the body's immune system. In the CF the immune system produces excessive amounts of chemicals called cytokines that serve to drive this damaging process. The cells which are producing these chemicals, and how the production is regulated, are unclear. These cytokines are key targets for therapy in other inflammatory diseases, and understanding what they do in the lung is critical not only to CF but also other diseases. This study will not test any investigational medicinal product or device. We will use patients and control samples to perform our experiments.
The primary objective of this research is to determine the importance excessive cytokine production, how this is regulated and which cell types of the immune system are involved.
Adult patients with CF and healthy control subjects will be eligible to take part. We will sample blood and sputum from these patients and control subjects for further experiments in the laboratory by isolating cells and measuring how they produce and express cytokines and other chemicals.
The study will be undertaken in Edinburgh in the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility (CRF). Patients will be recruited from the Scottish Adult CF service clinic t the Western General Hospital Edinburgh.
This study represents discovery stage science and as such there is no direct impact in terms of new treatments, it may however lead to new treatments in the future by providing increased knowledge of the disease process in CF which will also be relavent for other diseases.
REC name
West Midlands - Solihull Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/WM/0125
Date of REC Opinion
29 Apr 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion