Dr David Yip was awarded a grant from the Channel 7 Children's Research Foundation towards establishing the clinical potential of sphingomimetics in children’s eczema. Eczema is a long-term inflammatory skin disease that affects 15-30% of children in industrialised countries, leading to a considerable economic burden and reduction in quality of life. The mainstay of treatment has been topical corticosteroids, which has limited efficacy in moderate-to-severe disease and children with steroid-resistance. More importantly, steroid can lead to substantial adverse side effects in children. The objective of this projet is to provide a scientific basis for the development of new treatment strategies using recently developed sphingomimetics to suppress the functions of key effector immune cells (e.g. mast cells) for the treatment of eczema in children.
