cystic fibrosis tagged posts

Rice University bioengineers use a magnetic field to activate nanoparticle-attached baculoviruses in a tissue. The viruses, which normally infect alfalfa looper moths, are modified to deliver gene-editing DNA code only to cells that are targeted with magnetic field-induced local transduction.
Credit: Laboratory of Biomolecular Engineering and Nanomedicine/Rice University

Experimental therapy could repair mutations that cause genetic diseases. Bioengineers have combined a virus that infects moths with magnetic nanoparticles to create a potential new therapy for inherited genetic diseases like muscular dystrophy, sickle cell, cystic fibrosis, spinal muscular atrophy and some forms of cancer.

Rice University bioengineer Gang Bao has combined magnetic nanoparticles with a viral container drawn ...

Researchers working on inhalable ibuprofen to treat cystic fibrosis

In cystic fibrosis, high dose ibuprofen helps slow decline of lung function, a disease caused by having two ‘bad’ copies of a gene that codes for a protein important in fluid secretion. Improved lung function is important, given that most people diagnosed die by their early 50s, usually due to chronic lung infections caused by their inability to move particles, including bacteria, up and out of the lungs. The downside is that ibuprofen doses that high, when taken routinely, can result in gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding and – when combined with the antibiotics that these patients often have to take for their recurring lung infections – acute kidney injury...