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Improving lung health: a research round-up
What’s Antimicrobial Resistance?
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is when the bugs that cause infections – bacteria, viruses or fungi – adapt so that antimicrobial medicines (for example, antibiotics) are no longer as effective or stop working as treatments.
Setting the scene
People with CF are at a high risk of developing lung infections, because of the thick sticky mucus in their lungs and existing lung damage. CF lung infections can cause breathlessness and difficulty breathing. They can cause major disruptions to day-to-day life and may lead to permanent lung damage.
Antimicrobial drugs are an important part of treatments for these infections. If an infection develops resistance to one antimicrobial medicine, then a course of a different, stronger treatment is given that may have more unpleasant side effects. For some infections, doctors are running out of alternative medicines to treat them.
Working in partnership
To help us solve the trickiest problems in CF research, partnerships and collaborations are essential. To diagnose and effectively treating lung infections, we’re co-funding important research with the CF Foundation in the United States and have worked in partnership with LifeArc to establish our Translational Innovation Hub Network for CF Lung Health and Infection, or CF Lung Health Network for short.
Working together as the CF AMR Syndicate, the Trust, Medicines Discovery Catapult and LifeArc are helping innovators in academia and industry not only address the unmet lung health needs of people with CF, but also accelerate discoveries that contribute to combating the growing threat of AMR.
Where can I find out more about what’s happening in research?
There’s so much research going on, that we don’t have space to include it all in one article. So instead, here are some headlines and links to places where you can find out more about each topic!
What’s happening with detecting and diagnosing infections?
We’re funding lab-based research to develop rapid and highly sensitive methods for detecting Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections indirectly in saliva samples.
Find out more about research we're funding
We have worked with partners in the CF AMR Syndicate to develop guidelines for industry researchers to develop new diagnostics for CF infections, known as Target Product Profiles or TPPs for short.
Look up more about Diagnostic TPPs
Exacerbations – why me, why now?
Can we predict when exacerbations are likely to happen from applying AI machine learning to personal health data? This is a question researchers in our Flare-CF Innovation Hub are currently investigating.
How come exacerbations are different for each individual with CF? And what triggers my exacerbation? Find out more about these studies in our Pulse-CF Innovation Hub, and how you may be able to take part in their research.
What happens when more than one bug is infecting the lungs?
It’s a question that CF researchers within the Precision-CF Innovation Hub are interested in answering! They are conducting research studies to understand how different bugs talk to each other and live together, and how our bodies respond to them. Their results could improve how infections are diagnosed and treated in the future.
What is happening with phage as a treatment for CF lung infections?
Bacteriophage, also known as ‘phage’, are naturally occurring viruses that infect bacteria and are highly specific for a particular bacteria. Researchers within the Trailfinder-CF Innovation Hub are exploring their potential as a treatment for CF lung infections.
To delve into detail about what phage are and how they could be used in CF research, you can watch a recording of our CF LIVE on bacteriophage
Are there any studies about lung health I can take part in?
Our Trials Tracker includes a list of CF research studies for people to get involved in. You can use the filters to look for studies about lung infections using the 'anti-infective' filter on the list of options on the left hand side
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