Researchers seek new drugs to boost the Treg effect

Regulatory T cells--a group of white-blood cells dubbed Tregs--were able to effectively treat acute lung injury in mice. And now researchers are pursuing a clinical approach that can use a revved up set of these immune cells to do the same in humans.

"Our study results are the critical first leads in finding treatments for a clinical condition that until now has had none, despite its high mortality," study senior investigator Dr. Landon King, director of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said in a news release. "When a patient develops acute lung injury, we want the critical care medicine team to be able to do more than just stabilize the patient on a ventilator."

Burns, car accidents, cancer and other conditions trigger acute lung damage in 200,000 Americans every year. And 75,000 of them die. Speeding the activation of Tregs or upping the body's level of these immune cells with new drugs could prove a powerful tool for treating them.

- check out the press release
- read the story from HealthDay News