Discovery of the mutation in AKAP-13 gene found in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) could lead to a cure for this debilitating lung disease, which has no treatment currently. Available drugs can only relieve the symptoms or slow down progress. A team of scientists at the University of Leicester and University of Nottingham under Professor Louise Wain and Professor Gisli Jenkins had recently found the culprit gene in a study, published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine and involving more than 2,700 people with IPF and 8,500 people without IPF from around the world. The research report said that it found that the DNA changes affect how much AKAP13 protein is produced by the gene in the lungs, suggesting that targeting this pathway with new drugs against IPF might lead to new treatments. The prevalence of IPF, which makes breathing difficult due to scarring or fibrosis in the lungs, rises by at least 6,000 new cases annually.