Emily Stoutenburg was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when she was just three months old. Some days, it requires three hours to take all of her medication and do the required physiotherapy.

"To be honest, I'm a very lucky person with cystic fibrosis,” said Stoutenburg. “I'm really, really healthy and my disease has been managed really well actually."

At the age of 27, doctors expect her to live only around 15 more years. Although her optimism helps Stoutenburg deal with her disease, living with cystic fibrosis isn't easy.

“If you get sick with something that lands you in the hospital or a chest infection or something like that, that's really cutting down on your lung function. Even every cough or every sneeze things like that can just add to this buildup of scar tissue in your lungs and that's killing your lung function every day so you're going to be able to do less and less."

But research at the Canadian Light Source synchrotron at the University of Saskatchewan is giving patients such as Stoutenburg hope.

"You inhale about 1,000 litres of air every day,” said researcher Juan Ianowski. “And every time you inhale, there are particles, there are bacteria . . . and you don't cough. You don't have a fever. Nothing happens to you. You don't even know, but you're fighting these pathogens.”

The bodies of patients with cystic fibrosis don’t have the ability to fight the bacteria. Using live animals, researchers have found a way to look further into the airway surface liquid (ASL) that rids the body of those every day irritants.

“First of all we found out we can measure this ASL layer,” Ianowski said. “Second that, when you put bacteria in the trachea of a normal pig, the ASL increases. There is more ASL."

After three years of work researchers can now begin finding out how to treat the animals that have cystic fibrosis.

“Usually it's kind of esoteric things, but occasionally things like this pop up and you know, maybe this will help somebody someday,” said Dean Chapman, a professor of anatomy and cell biology

Although a breakthrough into breathing easier for people living with cystic fibrosis could still be years away this initial research is still a light at the end of the tunnel.

“Dealing with the day to day stuff with the disease is fine, everyone can handle that,” Stoutenburg said. “I think it's the not knowing when something really bad is going to strike. So that really gives you that hope that there might be more of a future for you."