Cure4CF
Foundation is delighted to announce new funding of more than $814,000 for local
research into a potential cure for this chronic lung disease.
The money has
been made available from the National Health and
Medical Research Council and will help fund a three-year project to identify
the role that airway stem cells play in gene therapy.
Associate
Professor David Parsons, who heads up the Adelaide CF Gene Therapy Research
Group, said the money is essential as his team prepares to move its work into human
trials in the next five years.
“It
will not only allow us to better understand how to produce a long-term gene
therapy treatment, but it will also help advance the potential for using this
method as a prevention for CF airway disease,” said Mr. Parsons.
David
Coluccio, Chairman of the Cure4CF Foundation, which has committed to underwrite
the research group’s five-year strategy, said this financial support is a vital
and critical step.
“If the techniques and strategies
developed are successful, there is enormous potential to vastly improve the
lives of the 3,000 people living with CF in Australia, and more than 70,000
people worldwide,” said Mr Coluccio.
“The
NHMRC support certainly adds a lot of credibility to this project but costs
remain large and Cure4CF still needs to raise more than $1.5 million annually
for the next five years to help ensure this goal can be realised.
“The journey to
find a cure for CF must be a collaborative effort and in Adelaide we are
fortunate to have some of the best people working on this research. But really
it is now up to us as a community to make sure that this potential cure for CF
airway disease is made a reality, by also making a significant investment in it.”
No comments:
Post a Comment