Latest Autoantibody Stories

NEW YORK, Feb. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Lupus Research Institute (LRI) today awards 12 "Novel Research Grants" to jumpstart discovery in lupus by supporting original, highly promising ideas from some of the country's most creative scientists. Studies will look at why lupus turns the body's immune system against itself and pioneer strategies for new treatment development. The new awards represent diverse disciplines, from inflammation and medical imaging to evolutionary biology...

More than 32 million people in the United States have autoantibodies, which are proteins made by the immune system that target the body's tissues and define a condition known as autoimmunity, a study shows. The first nationally representative sample looking at the prevalence of the most common type of autoantibody, known as antinuclear antibodies (ANA), found that the frequency of ANA is highest among women, older individuals, and African-Americans. The study was conducted by the National...

Researchers at National Jewish Health have discovered a type of cell that may contribute to autoimmune disease. The findings also suggest why diseases such as lupus, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis strike women more frequently than men.The cells, a subset of immune-system B cells, make autoantibodies, which bind to and attack the body's own tissue. The researchers report in the August 4, 2011, issue of the journal Blood, that they found higher levels of these cells in elderly...

NOVATO, Calif., June 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (Nasdaq: BMRN) announced today that the first patient has been dosed in the Phase 3 trial for amifampridine phosphate (3,4-diaminopyridine phosphate) for the treatment of patients with Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome (LEMS). Amifampridine phosphate received marketing approval in the EU for the treatment of LEMS in January 2010. "In early 2010, we introduced the first approved therapeutic option to the EU to treat...

Researchers from Harvard Medical School and MIT have developed a new approach for identifying the "self" proteins targeted in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.In a paper published in Nature Biotechnology, H. Benjamin Larman and colleagues showed that errant immune responses which mistakenly target the body's own proteins rather than foreign invaders can now be examined in molecular detail. Further research could lead to new insights...

DENVER, May 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Oncimmune® LLC , maker of EarlyCDT(TM)-Lung, a simple blood test that aids physicians in the risk assessment and early detection of lung cancer, today announced that four poster presentations during the American Thoracic Society's (ATS) International Conference May 13 - 18 in Denver will collectively highlight the diagnostic and economic benefits of EarlyCDT-Lung. Oncimmune's EarlyCDT-Lung test uses a panel of tumor antigens to detect the presence of...

Findings could lead to better diagnostics and more personalized treatmentResearchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have discovered that human proteins with an affinity for Dermatan Sulfate (DS) have the propensity to become autoantigens. In a companion article, the researchers also found that DS physically interacts with dead cells and that the resulting DS"“autoantigen complexes drive autoreactive B-1a cell responses and autoantibody production both in-vitro and in mouse...

BOSTON, April 15, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In the first study investigating the origins of a little-known condition called chronic ulcerative stomatitis (CUS), researchers at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine provide evidence that an autoimmune response contributes to the painful oral sores that characterize the disease. The study findings support the classification of CUS as a new autoimmune disease. Chronic ulcerative stomatitis is characterized by painful, recurring sores...

The long path to Benlysta emphasizes importance of basic researchScientific advances at The Scripps Research Institute were key to laying the foundation for the new drug Benlysta® (belimumab), approved today by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Benlysta®, which treats the most common type of lupus, is the first in a new class of pharmaceuticals that prevents the body from attacking its own critical tissues."I am deeply gratified that our scientific findings have proven so...

Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Cambridge, Mass., in collaboration with Jackson Laboratory scientists, have identified a regulatory defect that drives lupus.Correcting the defect "may represent an effective therapeutic approach to systemic lupus erythematosus-like autoimmune disease," the researchers state in their research paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research team was led by Harvey Cantor, M.D., chair of the department of cancer...