Investigating lung repair in inflammatory airways diseases V1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Investigating mechanisms of lung repair in inflammatory airways diseases
IRAS ID
352057
Contact name
Robert Gray
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
awaiting assignment, NCT number
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Inflammatory airways diseases (Asthma, COPD, Cystic Fibrosis (CF) and non-CF Bronchiectasis) are extremely common in the UK population. These are a series of diseases with primarily affect the main airways causing an obstructive pattern of disease. All of these are progressive lung diseases without a cure.
Recent estimates show that 6.5% of the adult population in the UK have asthma and COPD affects approximately an additional 3 million people. CF is the most common fatal genetic condition with over 10,000 people in the UK affected. Non-CF bronchiectasis also affects 1% of the UK population.All of these conditions have been shown to be due to a hyperinflammatory response within the airways causing disruption to the usual homeostatic mechanisms. As a result, infections and inflammation cause a progressive reduction in lung function leading to significant mortality and morbidity.
Preliminary work by our group using nasal epithelial cells from people with CF shows that these cells offer a good surrogate for the study of airway damage and repair in airways disease and can be used to form organoids, or “mini-lungs”, that can be further interrogated to investigate the repair process.
Levels of systemic inflammation in people with inflammatory airways disease may also be key to the lung repair process and we have previously shown that inflammation may also predict outcomes in patients[5]. As such we will also assess inflammation with a number of assays in tandem with our epithelial cell harvest protocols.
REC name
South West - Cornwall & Plymouth Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
25/SW/0127
Date of REC Opinion
18 Nov 2025
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion