The Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University have received a grant of almost $10 million to target lethal lung damage that causes the many deaths in children with sickle cell disease.
The grant, awarded by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, will provide about $2 million in funding each year over five years, fostering bench-to-bedside research to find treatment that could stem a complication of sickle cell disease called “acute chest syndrome.” Acute chest syndrome damages the lungs, causing them to fill with fluid and sometimes resulting in respiratory failure.
“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,” said Dr. Clinton H. Joiner, director of Hematology in the Aflac Cancer Center and professor of pediatrics with Emory University School of Medicine. “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.”
Specifically, the grant calls for Emory and the Aflac Cancer Center to accomplish two key goals:
- Find a drug or a biological agent that would protect, stop or stem lung damage in sickle cell patients.
- Develop and encourage researchers to find innovative therapies for sickle cell and its complications.
The Aflac Cancer Center and Emory in Atlanta were a frontrunner for the grant because it already treats the largest population of sickle cell patients in the nation and is one of the few institutions focused on combating acute chest syndrome.
