Current treatments for asthma largely involve controlling the inflammation of lung tissue using steroid inhalers. However, four people die every day in the U.K. from asthma-related complications. Now, the team of researchers have investigated the scarring that occurs in lung tissue as a result of asthma and have been able to reverse these changes in animal models. The study is published in Science Immunology.

Although still in the early stages of development, this discovery paves the way for a new way to treat not only asthma, but many different diseases in which similar structural changes in tissues occur. Such diseases include conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver and account for approximately 40% of deaths worldwide.