Many of the respiratory diseases include mucus overproduction and stagnation. This include COPD, acute and chronic bronchitis, cystic fibrosis, about half of the ones with asthma. COPD has now become the third reason for death where both vascular-heart diseases and cancer are making fast improvements, whereas there has not been the same development for COPD. A major reason for this is the limitations in understanding the lung mucus system in health and disease.
We have made progress in this and shown that the normal lungs do not have as misunderstood a mucus coating and is instead cleaned by mucus bundles from the submucosal glands that sweep the surface and transport the debris and bacteria to the larynx and by this keep the lungs essentially free from bacteria and dust. When the lungs are exposed to virus, more bacteria or inhaled particles, the lung respond by increased number of mucus producing cells that form an attached stratified mucus layer. This layer is similar to the protective mucus layer discovered by us in the large intestine. This mucus layer will trap bacteria that will remain in the lungs due to the mucus attachment, something that cause inflammation and destruction of the lung, typical for many lung diseases.
Our basic research efforts have been focused on understanding the molecular details of the mucus layer at disease, to such a level that novel drugs can be developed to detach the disease mucus layer allowing an efficient cleaning of mucus and bacteria from the lungs. The main goal is to develop several generations of novel efficient mucolytic drugs for the common lung diseases.
