Every year, around 40,000 Americans die from pulmonary fibrosis, a condition in which scar tissue builds in the lungs, making breathing difficult. That’s about the same number of deaths caused by breast cancer.

There is no cure for pulmonary fibrosis, and the few existing treatments focus on improving quality of life and delaying disease progression.

That may soon change, thanks to research by Ronit Freeman, associate professor of applied physical sciences in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences. Together with pulmonologist Dr. James Hagood, professor in the UNC School of Medicine, Freeman is developing what may be the first treatment ever to reverse lung fibrosis.

Freeman’s lab designed synthetic peptides — short chains of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins — to mimic the fibrosis-reversing properties of a protein identified by Hagood’s lab.

Next, they tested the compounds in fibrotic lung tissue samples taken from patients.

“Upon administration of the peptide mimetic, we see the scar tissue disappear — a reversal of the fibrosis into a healthy state. It’s remarkable to look at it,” Freeman says during the latest episode of the video series “North Carolina Innovators You Should Know,” hosted by former Eshelman Innovation Executive Director John Bamforth. “The ability to have a treatment that [would allow] patients to extend their life or completely be cured would be revolutionary.”