Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Shutterstock/NeydtStock

Trinity scientists believe they have made a breakthrough in treating asthma and eczema

Scientists believe their breakthrough could help create new drugs to treat allergic conditions.

SCIENTISTS FROM TRINITY College have said they have made a “significant breakthrough” in understanding the immune cells which play a vital role in diseases such as asthma and eczema.

Researchers from the Dublin university said they identified what they described as a ‘checkpoint’ “manned by these immune cells that, if barred, can halt the development of the lung inflammation associated with allergies”.

The work has just been published in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Journal of Experimental Medicine.

The team of scientists was led by Padraic Fallon of the School of Medicine in the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute.

He said: “The discovery now provides a potential new target for drug developers on which to hone in. In theory, a drug that successfully regulates this newly pinpointed checkpoint would better control overly aggressive allergic responses.”

Fallon added that this identification of an early stage cellular checkpoint has “important implications for the development of new therapeutic approaches” for asthma and other allergic diseases.

First author of the paper, Dr Christian Schwartz, said she believes that the more scientists learn about these cellular networks, the more possibilities they will be able to “create for intervention”.

Read: ‘That son-in-law, I hate him’: Thomas Martens told co-worker he hated Jason Corbett, court hears >

Close
37 Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Gavin Scott
    Favourite Gavin Scott
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 9:58 PM

    Oh please god let it be….

    264
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute A H
    Favourite A H
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 10:01 PM

    @Gavin Scott: Yeah I’d love it too. But I bet it’ll cost way too much to benefit they great red eyed snotty wheezing unwashed! Hope not but you know. …

    44
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dave Harris
    Favourite Dave Harris
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 1:26 AM

    @A H: if only the government could see the cost benefits to their health budgets if asthma could be treated like the article suggests is possible

    If only

    12
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute RoryByrne
    Favourite RoryByrne
    Report
    Aug 3rd 2017, 8:01 AM

    @Gavin Scott: have you tried eating raw broccoli daily, since starting to eat is daily it’s reduced my need for inhalers.

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Niamh O'Halloran
    Favourite Niamh O'Halloran
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 10:11 PM

    Hoping this can become a reality. I got word today of my medication which i take daily Accolate will be taken off the market in Ireland as it is not profitable presumably. I rely on medication to get through my day. Here’s hoping for a cure, allergies and Asthma and a real misery.

    87
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John Strahan
    Favourite John Strahan
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 10:19 PM

    Having been part of the organisation that built Trinity Bio, I’d like to say well done chaps. And you’re welcome.

    74
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Deborah Behan
    Favourite Deborah Behan
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 10:40 PM

    Fantastic news! Science rocks!

    42
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Emmet Dillane
    Favourite Emmet Dillane
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 10:08 PM

    Good news.
    Interestingly enough homeopathy was the first discipline to recognize that fact asthma in children is often preceded by eczema. OK, some argue the correlation has not been proven but that’s like arguing that night does not always follow day.
    Mainstream medicine only treats the symptoms which suppresses the eczema and drives the problem inwards. Homeopaths find a medicine which matches the general characteristics of the person with much better outcomes.
    Ars-alb, ipecac, lachesis, pulsatilla, spongia, sulphur, ignatia, antim-tart, hepar-sulph, nat-sulph and tuberculinum are some of the best homeopathic remedies for eczema depending on the characteristics of the patient (as I have already stated)

    42
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Emmet Dillane
    Favourite Emmet Dillane
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 10:16 PM

    @Jimmy Ireland:
    Cause and effect Jimmy.

    15
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Alfie Munro
    Favourite Alfie Munro
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 10:30 PM

    @Emmet Dillane: ill informed nonsense! Homeopathy is snake oil. You list sulphur as a medicine?!! Do you know what it is? Are you crazy?

    Dangerous fiction presented as fact.

    Evidence based medicine only!

    64
    See 9 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Martin Byrne
    Favourite Martin Byrne
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 10:31 PM

    @Emmet Dillane: go away you utter twitlet

    41
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Emmet Dillane
    Favourite Emmet Dillane
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 10:40 PM

    @Alfie Munro:
    Very popular in Chinese medicine Alfie, a form of medicine which has been around for over 2,500 years and still widely popular today.

    13
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ruairi Fahy
    Favourite Ruairi Fahy
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 10:49 PM

    @Emmet Dillane: Homeopathy is absolute junk. Employ a witch or wizard instead.

    43
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean
    Favourite Sean
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 10:57 PM

    @Emmet Dillane: Emmet my good man. TCM and homeopathy and blood-letting and all that nonsense was great back in the day before modern medicine. Nowadays people want to be cured. They don’t want to stay up drinking morning Dee from a pigs ear while chewing on tiger testicles (very crunchy – I don’t recommend it). And homeopathy, really? But if it keeps queues down in A&E I’m all for it!

    27
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Rory Maguire
    Favourite Rory Maguire
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 12:55 AM

    @Alfie Munro: Too much of anything can kill you. Potassium is used in a lethal injection and found in Bananas for example.

    6
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Catherine Sims
    Favourite Catherine Sims
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 2:52 AM

    @Emmet Dillane: If any of that stuff worked there would be no need for medications now would there. As Dara O Briain says anything that worked became medicine and the rest is just nonsense.

    20
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Missyb211
    Favourite Missyb211
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 7:06 AM

    @Emmet Dillane:” homeopaths find the right medicine” and what then? They dilute it with water to “the point where no molecules of the original substance remain.” believing that the dilution process itself increases the potency of the medicine? How can we be expected to believe that to be a medical treatment for anything? If someone tried that with my cup of tea i’d kill them.

    11
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John B
    Favourite John B
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 12:22 PM

    @Emmet Dillane: so was blood letting. Conceptually the idea is appealing, sounds like vaccination almost. I’m sure it’s inventor Hahnehman was a very intelligent person. At that time one scientific theory about matter was the theory of infinite solution. That is, when you dilute something, no mater how much, a small piece of its matter remains. At that time they didn’t know that matter was made up of discreet entities called atoms. An intelligent man like Hahnehman ironically would probably be the first to dump his own homeopathy if he had modern scientific knowledge. Quacks subsequently just changed the theory after discovery of the atom to say that the water remembers. Unlike modern medicine which dumps ineffective treatments, quacks have never dumped any ineffective treatment.

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jed I. Knight
    Favourite Jed I. Knight
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 4:30 PM

    @Catherine Sims: Couldn’t agree more. If that nonsense actually worked you’d see situations where people are lying on the ground, crying in agony, the ambulance would pull up and a couple of paramedics run over to the patient who’d gasp. “Piss off you charlatans, I want my homeopathist, I don’t want any of your MRI scans or morphine, just give me some bryonia alba and a rub of a nettle leaf and this broken hip will be as good as new. Awooooo”

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Paul Culligan
    Favourite Paul Culligan
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 10:15 PM

    All the same, isn’t Trinity College the bomb?

    38
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Acedeuce
    Favourite Acedeuce
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 10:40 PM

    Great news! Really hope it comes to fruition, and as a long time asthma sufferer I’d love nothing more.. It’s a proper pain in the ass, as I’m sure eczema too.

    52
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean
    Favourite Sean
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 10:58 PM

    @Acedeuce: are you sure it’s asthma you have? It shouldn’t give you a pain in your ass. That sounds more like piles to me.

    39
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute RiainOg
    Favourite RiainOg
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 11:04 PM

    @Sean: Gob Shit3

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute David Mackeown
    Favourite David Mackeown
    Report
    Aug 1st 2017, 11:33 PM

    About time. I have bad eczema flare ups on one ear which becomes flaky and red. Tried everything and nothing works. Fingers crossed for this.

    18
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Honeybee
    Favourite Honeybee
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 12:21 AM

    @David Mackeown: If it is of any benefit to you, I recently read an article about a moisturizer sold in Boots chemists which sounds promising ,the link is
    Mother praises ‘miracle’ £3.99 Childs Farm cream which ‘cured … – Metro
    metro.co.uk/…/mother-praises-miracle-3-99-cream-which-cured-daughters-painful-ec..

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Honeybee
    Favourite Honeybee
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 12:24 AM
    4
    See 4 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Karen Bergin
    Favourite Karen Bergin
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 12:43 AM

    @David Mackeown: I too have eczema in my ear. Both in fact. I had itchy, flaky, raw red ears for years. I went in to the ENT in Beaumont private about 12 years ago and he prescribed me a steroid ointment called Betnovate, best thing I have ever used for my exzema. Not sure if you’ve used it yourself but it’s worth a look. I went to see the ENT again last year for the first time in 8 years (having previously had to see him every 6 weeks for about 3 years) and he said my ears were the best they had ever been. So much so they’re starting to produce wax again (gross but necessary!) It’s worth asking your GP about, it might help.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute David Mackeown
    Favourite David Mackeown
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 2:33 AM

    @Honeybee: Really appreciate the feedback and will defiantly look into this. Thank you :-)

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute David Mackeown
    Favourite David Mackeown
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 2:35 AM

    @Karen Bergin: Thanks anyway for reply but tried this and didn’t work.

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Karen Bergin
    Favourite Karen Bergin
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 9:26 PM

    @David Mackeown: Oh no, sorry to hear that :( I know how frustrating it can be. I really hope you can find something to help.

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Craig Barry
    Favourite Craig Barry
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 12:42 AM

    Great work !

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Catherine Hogan
    Favourite Catherine Hogan
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 12:19 AM

    David moo goo MSM cream works

    8
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute David Mackeown
    Favourite David Mackeown
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 2:34 AM

    @Catherine Hogan: Tried it sadly doesn’t work for me. Thanks anyway.

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute RM
    Favourite RM
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 9:14 AM

    As a mother of child that suffered from chronic eczema for years I swear what set her on the road to recovery was going swimming every day. I discovered this by accident when we went on hols to Spain and she spent hours in the pool every day. When my son developed a milder form he used to wash it with diluted Milton everyday .

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John B
    Favourite John B
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 4:27 PM

    @RM: my kid is the opposite, makes hers worse.

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Stewart O Neill
    Favourite Stewart O Neill
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 5:34 AM

    Maybe we will get some proper relief.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Larry Smierciak
    Favourite Larry Smierciak
    Report
    Aug 2nd 2017, 9:30 PM

    Another breakthrough for Trinity! We’ll done to all involved.

    2
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.