World-renowned Hampstead scientist awarded £½m grant for medical research
Leading Hampstead physician Professor Carol Black has been awarded a £½m programme grant by medical research charity the Arthritis Research Campaign for a five-year investigation of a rare but incurable disease.
Professor Black, who is based at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead is a world-renowned expert in systemic sclerosis, which affects around 4,000 people in the UK.
She and her team and the Royal Free's medical school and King's College, London, hope to carry out detailed research that could lead to new drugs which slow down the progress of the disease, and reduce symptoms.
Systemic sclerosis is the term for a connective tissue disease of unknown cause. Symptoms include disfiguring hardened skin lesions and fibrosis (thickening and scarring of the connective tissue) of the internal organs, such as the lungs, heart, kidneys and digestive tract. The disease is often progressive, leading to premature death due to organ failure.
"Early damage to small blood vessels supplying the connective tissues is evident, but the mechanisms causing this and fibrosis are very poorly understood, so presently available drugs are of limited help," explained Professor Black.
"We will use cell culture studies to identify the molecules that damaged blood vessels produce which can trigger fibrosis, and the mechanisms by which they act. The results will be important for the design of drugs to slow the progress of systemic sclerosis, and alleviate some of the clinical problems caused by this disease."
