Cystic Fibrosis :: essays research papers

cystic FibrosisShelby Parker sits in the lotus position in the middle of a hospital bed, her slender arms resting on the pillow in her lap. Cystic fibrosis is catching up with her. At 23 years old Shelby stands at five foot two inches and weighs seventy pounds. She seems impossibly thin, her limbs are so frail its a wonder she can lift a folderol of water.Just a year ago, Shelby was a fulltime college student, besides now she spends twenty-four hour period and night connected to an oxygen tank. A hose runs into her nose, another pumps endovenous antibiotics into her arm. An infection almost killed her in January, and nothing short of a lung grafting will save her.A tiny doe-eyed women with a childs voice, Shelby is in a life and death show down with her distemper. Her lungs, scarred by perennial infections, are failing. Ten years ago, death would have loomed certain. Today in that location is hope. Just a few miles from where Shelby waits, doctors at the University of North Car olina are ahead(p) a national effort to cure cystic fibrosis by repairing the untimely gene that causes the indisposition. But that prospect is still very far off.For Shelby, the save real hope lies in the hands her doctors who have the power to take her weak, scarred lungs and replace them with a healthy set.Cystic Fibrosis is a disease caused by an inherited transmissible defect. It is not contagious, yet about one(a) in twenty-three people in the United States carry at least one defective gene. This statistic makes cystic fibrosis the most common genetic defect of its severity in the country.For many, cystic fibrosis used to be cognise as a childhood disease, and to some it still is. Just xxx years ago, the median survival age was only eight, but give thanks to medical advances, life expectancy is now just under 40 for cystic fibrosis patients. Today there are an alarming number of adults with this disease who face an added set of problems such as finding health insura nce, acquittance to college, getting a job, and building permanent relationships- all while charge up physical therapy and medications.For many years the causes of cystic fibrosis were a mystery, but recent advances in biology have made the reasons much much clear. Humans have a gene encoded in their DNA, which manufactures a supernumerary protein called CFTR. This protein controls the flow of chloride ions across the cell membrane.