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Funding boost for vital research

PHARMACEUTICAL research which could hold the key to curing a rare genetic disease is being carried out at a newly opened multi-million pound science complex in the North East.

As a result of their ongoing research into improving life-saving drugs used to treat cystinosis, pharmaceutical scientists at the University of Sunderland have now received funding from America to carry out a comprehensive three-year study into the disease using the latest research techniques.

There is still no cure for cystinosis which occurs when the body’s mechanism to remove excess cystine (an amino acid) breaks down, leading to kidney problems and eventually affecting other organs. If left untreated, the disease can result in kidney failure before a child reaches the age of 10; until very recently, it was rare for patients to live beyond the age of 20.

Now a successful bid for funding from the US charity, Cystinosis Research Network (CRN), will see Professor Roz Anderson head up a team of academics to learn more about the disease, identify biomarkers to help improve detection and early diagnosis.

It will also develop new targets for intervention and preventative treatment, offering new hope to thousands of sufferers and their families.

The team includes graduate analyst Jill Jobson, who will carry out this research for her PhD and will utilise the new facilities and state-of-the-art equipment in the university’s £7.5m science complex, which officially opened in February, for the research.

Prof Anderson said: “This is an incredibly exciting project to be involved in. We were invited to apply for the funding as a result of the research at the university, working towards the good of cystinosis.

“Although there has been some very good research carried out on this disease in the past, there’s not been a systematic study until now and we are at an advantage of using the latest techniques, so we’re hopeful of discovering new pathways to intervention.

“We also have the advantage of conducting the study in the university’s new science complex, which has some of the best facilities in the region available to us.”

The study will focus on the condition of the inherited disease at a cellular level using the latest ‘proteomic’ techniques - the study of proteins in cells.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .