Our Drug
We have developed the first asthma therapeutic to target the structural cells of the lung and not the immune system.
By binding to the CXCL12 molecules, it prevents them from being seen by pericytes and removing the signal attracting pericytes to the airway.
Its effect on… Symptoms
After daily administration in asthmatic mice, symptoms such as wheezing, sneezing and shortness of breath were monitored and assigned a score.
2 weeks after the first treatment, symptoms had significantly decreased, almost disappearing entirely.
Its effect on… Smooth Muscle
Images were taken of asthmatic mouse lungs with and without recvieving our drug. We measured the amount of smooth muscle around the airways.
Treatment with our drug resulted in statistically thinner smooth muscle layers in the airway, reducing unwanted airway constriction and leading to the reduction of symptoms we observed.
Its effect on… Immune Cells
Existing asthma drugs focus on altering the immune system, so therefore we wanted to see if our drug had a similar effect.
Following treatment with our drug, the number and proportion of immune cells present in the asthmatic mouse lung did not change. This means that the improvement of symptoms we observed was due to a reduction in airway remodelling and not due to the immune response.
This shows that our drug has a totally unique mechanism of action to existing drugs.
