Jing Jin; Xiaoguang Chen, Xiaoxi Lv, Ming Ji, Mingjin Wang, Huimin Jiang, Mengyao Hao | Beijing Hospital
Competition Sponsor: Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences
Award year: 2021
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a respiratory disease with high mortality rate. It mostly occurs in men aged from 50-70. As a country with serious aging, the incidence rate of IPF is increasing year by year, but the exact pathogenesis of IPF is still unknown, and there are no specific therapeutic drugs.
Ethoximod is a novel sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor-1 (S1P1) agonist developed by our group, which was approved by the CFDA for the treatment of psoriasis in 2016, and is now in clinical I trial for psoriasis therapy. Our preclinical study found that Ethoximod has great therapeutic effect on bleomycin induced mice fibrosis by protecting the homeostasis of the alveolar capillary barrier, suggesting S1P1 may be a potential drug target for IPF. In this study, we will further clarify the mechanism of S1P1 on IPF and develop Ethoximod as a “First-in-Class” drug for IPF therapy.