Grant: Team Grant: Preparation to Trial: Inflammation for Chronic Conditions

Patients that are very sick and in the intensive care unit (critical illness) often develop problems with their lungs and kidneys. These problems are frequently due to excessive inflammation which can damage these organs in the short term leading to lung and kidney failure. These patients often require supportive treatments such as dialysis or mechanical ventilation. In patients who survive their illness, lung and kidney injury experienced in the intensive care unit can often result in long term (chronic) lung and kidney disease.Thus, the consequences of surviving a critical illness can remain with patients for their lifetime, resulting in disability, reduced quality of life and an increased burden on the healthcare system. This proposal will test whether a new class of drugs developed at the University of Calgary can limit short term lung and kidney injury during critical illness by blocking a new mechanism of inflammation in these organs. Studies will also assess the best way to introduce these new drugs into patients in the intensive care unit. Research in this proposal will help advance these new drugs into clinical trials in humans aimed at preventing short term lung and kidney injury during critical illness to reduce the risk of long term disability from chronic lung and kidney disease.