SCIENTISTS led by a University of Nottingham Professor have made a genetic discovery which could improve treatment for lung diseases.

The research by an international consortium of 96 scientists from 63 centres in Europe and Australia sheds new light on the make up of lung diseases.

The new findings provide hope for better treatment for diseases like such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma.

In the past it has been difficult to develop new treatments because the molecular pathways that affect the health of the lung are not completely understood.

It is hoped that new pathways now discovered could be targeted by drugs in the future.

The ground-breaking research involved a genetic study of 20,000 people across the world. The consortium was led by Dr Martin Tobin from the University of Leicester and Professor Ian Hall from the University of Nottingham.

The research, part-funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Asthma UK, has published in Nature Genetics.