March 22, 2006

Asthma-Causing Cells Pinpointed
Researchers Omid Akbari & Dale Umetsu Surprised By Findings

BOSTON (WCVB, ABC affiliate)-- Research done at Boston's Children's Hospital pinpointed the cells responsible for causing asthma -- the disease that impacts more than 20 million Americans. NewsCenter 5's Liz Brunner reported Wednesday that the new development is not a cure, but medical researchers see it as a significant step in understanding the lung disease that sends more than 2 million people to the emergency room each year.

"We believe this is a totally new way to look at asthma," Children's Hospital Boston's Dr. Dale Umetsu said. "We found that asthma caused is not by T helper 2 cells, as had been thought in the past, but rather NKT cells, or natural killer T cells."

Scientists said that they were actually surprised by the findings. The NKT cells are found in other parts of the body, but the asthma breakthrough, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, shows that when they enter the lungs, asthma occurs.

"These cells are extremely important in combating diseases such as cancer, but what we found was that they get recruited into the lungs, and this causes dysfunction, and this causes disease," Children's Hospital Boston's Dr. Omid Akbari said...
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Sent by Atosa M Ghadimi

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