Cystic Fibrosis is a devastating genetic disease which afflicts over 10,000 children across the country. The disease results in a declining lung function, which in turn leads to a higher likelihood of developing lung infections. These chronic lung infections have a severe impact on the quality of life and eventually lead to premature death.
Research highlighting the way in which lung-damaging bacteria use the body’s own immune response to worsen the effect has brought new hope to sufferers of this disease and a related disease called bronchiectasis that afflicts over 100,000 adults in the UK.
The authors of the study, published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, hope that their work will alter the way in which new vaccines and treatments are developed for Cystic Fibrosis and other variations of bronchiectasis.
