Fat controller key to disease links

Cystic fibrosis is an inherited disease that affects a number of organs in the body, particularly the lungs and pancreas, by clogging them with a thick, sticky mucus. The symptoms of CF include poor weight gain and repeated chest infections and coughs.

There is no cure for the condition, which affects about 9000 babies, children and young adults around the UK. However, the faulty gene that causes CF has been discovered and so there is real hope that a cure will be found.

Dr Mehta, who has worked in CF research for 20 years, recently discovered genetic pathways that link cystic fibrosis to other conditions including cancer, diabetes and obesity.

The findings provide a major breakthrough in understanding why CF patients suffer significant variations in weight, suffer a higher incidence of cancer than the normal population, and are prone to developing an unusual form of diabetes.

"The implications of this are that we have opened up a whole new area of research which links all of these conditions, and from here on in researchers looking at cancer, diabetes, obesity or cystic fibrosis should all be working together and looking at what the other is doing, because it is all linked together," Dr Mehta said.

"We believe that these results could have a significant impact in terms of the treatment of patients with all three diseases - cystic fibrosis, some forms of childhood cancer and adult onset diabetes - and, hence, their potential life expectancy."

Dr Mehta led the research team which included Research Fellow Dr Russell Crawford and international collaborators in Italy, Germany, France, Portugal and the USA. Results of the research, which was funded by grants from the Wellcome Trust and Cystic Fibrosis Trust over the last ten years, were published in the scientific journals Molecular and Cell Biology and Cellular Signalling. The next phase of the work will be published in FASEB Journal later this year

More information about Dr Mehta's research:

University webpage: www.dundee.ac.uk/mchs/stafffile/anilmehta.html

Cystic Fibrosis database: www.cystic-fibrosis.org.uk

Draft conference registration: www.dundee.ac.uk/mchs/ndpk

The Cystic Fibrosis Trust: www.cftrust.org.uk