Kv7 channel activators -a novel treatment for preterm labour?

每年有超过4万名婴儿过早出生。虽然其中一些婴儿会很健康，但许多婴儿在出生后不久就会死亡，而那些存活下来的婴儿则面临终身残疾或行为问题的风险。理想情况下，产科医生希望能够预测哪些妇女有早产的风险，并防止她们过早分娩。然而，目前还不可能做到这一点，住院的早产妇女需要药物来阻止子宫（子宫）收缩。目前可用的药物不是很有效，确实需要开发更好的治疗方法。我们的研究已经确定了一类新的药物（Kv7通道激活剂），可以潜在地阻止子宫收缩。在我们开始在孕妇身上测试这些药物之前，我们需要证明它们在怀孕期间使用是安全的。我们的项目旨在做到这一点，并加深我们对这些药物如何专门针对子宫的理解。

Every year, over 40,000 babies are born too early. Whilst some of these babies will be healthy, many will die shortly after birth and those who survive risk developing lifelong disability or behavioural problems. Ideally, obstetricians would like to be able to predict which women are at risk of delivering their baby prematurely and prevent them going into labour too early. However, this is not yet possible and women present at hospital in preterm labour requiring drugs to stop their uterus (womb) from contracting. The drugs currently available are not very effective and there is a real need to develop better treatments. Our research has identified a new class of drugs (Kv7 channel activators) that can potentially stop the uterus from contracting. Before we can begin testing these drugs in pregnant women, we need to show that they are safe to use in pregnancy. Our project aims to do this and also to develop our understanding of how these drugs can target the uterus specifically.