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Grant will fund research to help patients with sickle cell disease
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The Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University received a nearly $10 million grant from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.
The 5-year grant will fund research into potential treatments for acute chest syndrome, a form of lethal lung damage that contributes to deaths of many children with sickle cell disease. Acute chest syndrome damages the lungs, causing them to fill with fluid. This can result in respiratory failure.
The grant is designed to help researchers find a drug or biological agent to protect, stop or reduce lung damage in sickle cell patients, as well as develop and encourage researches to find innovative therapies for sickle cell disease and its complications.
“If we can prevent children from having acute chest syndrome, we can reduce a lot of the misery that they experience — and a real threat to their very existence,” Clinton H. Joiner, MD, PhD, director of hematology at the Aflac Cancer Center and professor of pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine, said in a press release. “We would make important progress in stopping serious illness, suffering and death. We do not have a silver bullet yet, but this would be significant progress.”