Eighteen people with
less than a year to live are to take part in an unprecedented medical
experiment that is as dazzling as it is daring.
A group of Toronto doctors has received Health Canada's permission
to test in humans a combination of medicine's hottest ingredients:
stem cells and gene therapy.
The molecular concoction is a potential treatment for an incurable
lung condition called pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) that
can leave people breathless just combing their hair. It affects
more than 7,000 Canadians as the blood vessels of their lungs shrivel.
A New Brunswick boy is getting help
for his lung condition from an unexpected source – Viagra.
Braden Gendron, 6, has pulmonary hypertension, or PH, a rare and
usually fatal condition affecting the lungs and heart. The only
cure is a lung
transplant.
Professor's grant supports sickle cell-related research
Daniel B. Kim-Shapiro, associate professor
of physics at Wake Forest University, has been awarded an Independent
Scientist Career Development Award (K02) from the National Heart, Lung,
and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
for his project "Nitrite and Nitric Oxide in Sickle Cell Blood."
Hunting A Cure: Researchers experiment with therapies to treat scleroderma, a disease that hardens body tissue
Cheryl Argiros of Coventry, Conn., already
has participated in four clinical trials of experimental treatments
for scleroderma, a disease that turns skin to the consistency of mahogany.
It has scarred her lungs and turned her hands into claws.
Researchers say that the prospects of developing new therapies to treat
the connective-tissue disease have never been better. More than 10 new
treatments - including vaccines, stem-cell transplants and specialized
antibodies currently - are being tested in patients.
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