NYU Winthrop Receives $50,000 To Help Find Pulmonary Disease Cure

Mother Mary Breathe Easy, a West Hempstead-based foundation recently gave NYU Winthrop Hospital a $50,000 grant to help find a cure for Pulmonary Disease.

Mother Mary raises money and funds research for awareness regarding Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF).

IPF is a progressive respiratory disease marked by thickening and stiffening of lung tissue, which causes scarring and changes the lung's ability to function normally. It affects 100,000 people in the U.S. with more than 30,000 new cases each year, according to NYU.

"We’re trying to open a different door into understanding this lung disease,” said lead researcher, Allison Reiss, MD, Head of the Inflammation Laboratory at NYU Winthrop Hospital’s Biomedical Research Center. “The challenging part was ‘How do we get into the pathology of the lungs without being invasive?’ That’s where NYU Winthrop has innovated, and using a hand-held portable device, we are collecting the exhaled breath condensation of patients to then examine cell fragments.”

“Our data from the exhaled breathe condensation has shown a clear difference between patients with and without IPF. We have identified specific molecules, or microRNAs, that may hold the keys to better understanding IPF so that we may develop new therapeutic treatments," said Priya Agarwala, MD, attending physician in the Pulmonary Division of NYU Winthrop Hospital.

Mother Mary Breathe Easy has raised $150,000 that has been donated to NYU Winthrop for research into the pulmonary disease.