ErbB inhibitors as a potential future treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Despite substantial improvements in the efficacy of therapeutics used to treat chronic inflammatory diseases over the last several decades, there is a significant unmet need for the treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the third leading cause of death worldwide in 2019. The increasing knowledge of cellular and molecular mechanisms that underpin inflammation in COPD has not yet translated into the successful development of improved therapeutics for patients. There is a clear role for dysregulated neutrophil apoptosis in driving tissue damage in COPD, and small molecule therapeutics that increase the apoptotic rate of neutrophils are available for research use. Kinase-targeting therapeutics are of particular interest, due to the well-characterised role of kinases in mediating a variety of apoptotic pathways, and clinically approved therapies targeting these pathways being well-tolerated by patients. This PhD aims to assess whether inhibitors of the ErbB family of receptor tyrosine kinases have potential efficacy in the treatment of COPD, via the induction of neutrophil apoptosis. ErbB inhibitors are currently used clinically for different disease indications, and re-purposing these for the treatment of COPD or other neutrophil-driven inflammatory diseases could bring new treatment strategies to patients.