The Therapeutic Potential of Novel and Emerging Anti-fibrotic Drugs

Fibrosis (organ scarring) results from an aberrant wound-healing response to organ injury, and is a hallmark of organ dysfunction and failure through excessive extracellular matrix (primarily collagen) build-up. Fibrosis-related diseases affecting the heart, kidney, lung and liver contribute to significant morbidity and mortality in developed countries, presenting a major unmet medical challenge.

Current therapies used to treat fibrotic disorders are often indirect and non-specific, and only slow disease progression whilst often provoking several side-effects. The recent identification of novel therapeutic targets, and the development of new treatment strategies based on them, offers the exciting prospect of more efficacious and safer therapies to treat this debilitating disorder.

This Research Topic, entitled “The Therapeutic Potential of Novel and Emerging Anti-fibrotic Drugs”, seeks articles (reviews and original research articles) on various aspects of fibrosis, that focus on emerging and novel treatments. The scope of this call-out can include mechanisms of drug treatments that target aspects of disease pathogenesis including, but not limited to: genetic and environmental factors; cell death; immune cell infiltration and/or inflammation; hypoxia; oxidative stress; organ hypertrophy; the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system; transforming growth factor-β1 and its down-stream mediators; epithelial- and/or endothelial-to-mesenchymal cell transition; myofibroblast activation and ECM production; and collagen turnover/degradation.