The Johns Hopkins Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine has received a $14 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to identify genes involved in 10 heart and lung diseases, with the goal of enhancing their diagnosis and treatment. The grant will be distributed over the next four years, and the division will have a chance to renew for an additional four-year period. "At the end of the four years, we should have an impressive understanding of the underlying causes and severity of these diseases, why risks vary, and why some people may be more responsive to specific medications," says Joe G. N. Garcia, M.D., director of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Hopkins.
The Hopkins team will use so-called DNA microarray technology in collaboration with scientists from National Children's Medical Center in Washington, D.C., to examine tissue samples from 10 different patient populations in order to identify culprit genes. "We will be able to screen 50,000 to 60,000 genes at a time and find out what genes are being activated or repressed in certain disease situations," says Garcia. The researchers will also make use of animal models of six of the conditions to speed their progress along.
Garcia and his colleagues will examine eight lung conditions: asthma, adult cystic fibrosis, lung transplantation, acute respiratory distress syndrome, pulmonary hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, scleroderma (a chronic autoimmune disease of the connective tissue), and sarcoidosis (an inflammatory disease that often starts in the lungs). They will also examine two heart conditions: ischemic cardiomyopathy (heart failure after heart attack) and transplanted heart.
The researchers hope to have useful results for at least two or three of the diseases in six months. "There may be genes common to many of these conditions, or we may wind up at the same final pathway by
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Contact: Kate O'Rourke
korourke@jhmi.edu
410-955-8665
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
12-Oct-2000