Marc Peters-Golden, research investigator L. Raghu Penke, PhD, and team sought to find out whether blocking a problematic gene known as FOXM1 could stop or slow the development of fibroblasts.
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is one of the most challenging and frustrating diseases that pulmonologists face.
And despite affecting 1 out of 200 adults over the age of 65 in the United States, general awareness of IPF is low.
“There’s a tremendous disconnect between the human impact of this disease and its recognition by the public. Few people have ever heard of it,” says Marc Peters-Golden, M.D., a professor of internal medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Michigan Medicine. “By the time most patients with IPF finally see a pulmonologist, their disease is already fairly advanced.”
