Almost everyone has experienced the congestion that accompanies a bad cold. The thick mucus that forms in the nose and throat makes breathing difficult. Luckily, this congestion dissipates in a few days as the body fights off the cold.

However, individuals afflicted with cystic fibrosis must constantly cope with the mucus which accumulates in the lungs, pancreas, and intestine. Cystic fibrosis, or mucoviscidosis, is an inherited disease that affects the exocrine glands. It is expressed only in the homozygous state without X chromosomal linkage. This genetic disease is often referred to as autosomal recessive. This means that children born to parents who each carry one recessive gene for the disease have a 25% chance of inheriting both copies of the defective gene--and with them the disease. This common disorder mainly effects about 1 out of every 2,000 caucasians of European descent, and it is the leading fatal genetic disease...