Latest Protective autoimmunity Stories
Disease-in-a-dish models show promise for treating ataxia telangiectasia Led by Dr. Peiyee Lee and Dr. Richard Gatti, researchers at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have used induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells to advance disease-in-a-dish modeling of a rare genetic disorder, ataxia telangiectasia (A-T). Their discovery shows the positive effects of drugs that may lead to effective new treatments for the neurodegenerative disease....
Neurons that control hunger in the central nervous system also regulate immune cell functions, implicating eating behavior as a defense against infections and autoimmune disease development, Yale School of Medicine researchers have found in a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Autoimmune diseases have been on a steady rise in the United States. These illnesses develop when the body's immune system turns on itself and begins attacking its own...
Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Over the previous several years, medical professionals have noted and documented marked increases in the prevalence of autoimmune diseases. An international team of scientists and researchers have come together in an attempt to identify the cause behind the increase in diseases like multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and other diseases. What they have learned is that there is a connection between dietary salt intake...
Researchers from Queen Mary, University of London have discovered that two proteins which are believed to play a key role in controlling the body's immune response are found in lower levels in T lymphocytes from patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). The study found that MS patients' T lymphocytes – types of white blood cells which play an important role in the immune system – were defective at producing the proteins and that this was associated with increased levels of molecules which...
In many pathologies of the nervous system, there is a common event - cells called microglia are activated from surveillant watchmen into fighters. Microglia are the immune cells of the nervous system, ingesting and destroying pathogens and damaged nerve cells. Until now little was known about the molecular mechanisms of microglia activation despite this being a critical process in the body. Now new research from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital – The Neuro - at McGill...
Researcher finds autoimmune response contributes to inflammation in the artery wall Most people probably know that heart disease remains the nation's No. 1 killer. But what many may be surprised to learn is that cholesterol has a major accomplice in causing dangerous arterial plaque buildup that can trigger a heart attack. The culprit? Inflammatory cells produced by the immune system. A number of research studies have demonstrated inflammation's role in fueling plaque buildup, also...
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive disease wherein the cells of the central nervous system (CNS) involved in movement and coordination are destroyed. Although the mechanism of ALS is not completely understood, inflammation is believed to play a role in the disease process. A recent study by Howard Weiner and colleagues at Harvard Medical School and Tufts School of Medicine investigated the role of inflammation in a mouse model of ALS. Weiner and colleagues found that the...
Protocol may open new avenues for cell-replacement therapies for neurological conditions For more than 20 years, doctors have been using cells from blood that remains in the placenta and umbilical cord after childbirth to treat a variety of illnesses, from cancer and immune disorders to blood and metabolic diseases. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have found a new way-using a single protein, known as a transcription factor-to convert cord blood (CB) cells...
(Ivanhoe Newswire)— Pill for spinal injury? A new study shows an oral drug that has shown promise in trials for human multiple sclerosis, significantly improves locomotor recovery in mice with spinal cord injury (SCI). Researchers uncover how a new pill that has shown positive results in mice with multiple sclerosis suffering from deterioration of the spinal cord, may help humans. Aside from the initial tissue damage, a great deal of the degradation of the spinal cord in SCI is the...
A research team led by Glenn Rall at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA developed a novel mouse model to show that a fatal central nervous system (CNS) disease can be caused by a pathogen that does not replicate in the CNS. The results of this new study are published December 22nd in the Open Access journal PLoS Pathogens. The authors found that the immune response induced in response to a peripheral viral infection can be "mis-recruited" to the brain, where these activated...
