Autoimmunity News and Research

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Autoimmune Disease is a condition in which the body recognizes its own tissues as foreign and directs an immune response against them.

Dr. Sarit Larisch receives the prestigious Johnson & Johnson Focused Funding grant

Dr. Sarit Larisch, Head of the Cell Death Research Laboratory in the University of Haifa's Department of Biology, has been awarded the prestigious Johnson & Johnson Focused Funding grant for her research exploring the cause of brain cell damage in Parkinson's disease.

26 Nov 2009

Johnson & Johnson Focused Funding grant for research on brain cell damage in PD

‏Dr. Sarit Larisch, Head of the Cell Death Research Laboratory and senior lecturer at the University of Haifa, has been awarded the prestigious Johnson & Johnson Focused Funding grant for her research exploring the cause of brain cell damage in Parkinson's disease.

25 Nov 2009

LRI awards $3.6 million grants to drive innovative science in lupus and related diseases

The Lupus Research Institute (LRI) today named 12 new grant recipients for 2009. The awards, totaling $3.6 million, recognize innovative work across a broad spectrum of lupus research. All were selected for their creativity, novelty, and potential to drive scientific discovery to ultimately prevent, treat, and cure the complex disease of systemic lupus.

24 Nov 2009

Research suggests common oral bacterium may exacerbate autoimmune disease

Current research suggests that a common oral bacterium may exacerbate autoimmune disease. The related report by Nichols et al, "Unique Lipids from a Common Human Bacterium Represent a New Class of TLR2 Ligands Capable of Enhancing Autoimmunity," appears in the December 2009 issue of The American Journal of Pathology.

23 Nov 2009

arGentis Pharmaceuticals to commence human clinical evaluation of ARG301 oral altered peptide ligand

arGentis Pharmaceuticals, LLC today announced that it will collaborate with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center of Memphis (VAMC) to initiate the first human clinical evaluation of an oral altered peptide ligand (APL), ARG301, in a Phase I study of Rheumatoid Arthritis patients.

12 Nov 2009

New state-of-the-art biotechnology center opened on the West Coast

As part of its strategy to discover and develop more biotechnology medicines, Eli Lilly and Company today officially opened a new state-of-the-art biotechnology center on the West Coast.

30 Oct 2009

Positive results from Argos Therapeutics' personalized immunotherapy candidate AGS-004 Phase 2a trial

Argos Therapeutics today announced two presentations at the AIDS Vaccine 2009 conference, detailing positive viral load, immune response and safety data from an ongoing Phase 2a trial of AGS-004, its personalized immunotherapy candidate. AGS-004 is a product of the Company’s Arcelis™ technology, and is a personalized, RNA-loaded, dendritic cell-based immunotherapy that is perfectly matched to each patient’s unique HIV viral burden.

21 Oct 2009

Professor secures grant for further research on immunotherapy strategies

Venuprasad K. Poojary, Ph.D., assistant professor at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State University School of Medicine, has secured a two-year federal grant for almost $1 million to further his research into creating more effective immunotherapy strategies for cancer treatment.

21 Oct 2009

Scientists find cause for lupuslike disease in mice

Macrophages, the scavenger cells of the body's immune system, are responsible for disposing of dying cells. Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have identified one pathway in this important process in mice that, if disrupted, causes a lupuslike autoimmune disease.

19 Oct 2009

PIKAMAB obtains U.S. patent rights to develop theragnostic product

PIKAMAB, a stratified medicine biopharmaceutical company, announced today that it has secured exclusive rights to two issued U.S. patents from Hospital for Special Surgery, New York. PIKAMAB is developing Lupus TherasightTM, a novel theragnostic product that will eventually help guide the drug development process and patient treatment protocols in the areas of lupus and lupus nephritis.

15 Oct 2009

Cytheris initiates Phase I/IIa dose escalation study of patients suffering from ICL

Cytheris SA, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on research and development of new therapies for immune modulation, today announced the initiation of a Phase I/IIa dose escalation study of patients suffering from idiopathic CD4 lymphocytopenia (ICL).

15 Oct 2009

Phadia launches new, advanced assays for accurate diagnosis of celiac disease

Phadia Inc., worldwide leaders in the development, manufacturing and marketing of complete blood test systems for the clinical diagnosis and monitoring of allergy, asthma and autoimmune diseases, today announced the launch of a two new, highly -reliable assays to support the accurate diagnosis of celiac disease.

8 Oct 2009

Membrane-bound Fas ligand is essential for cell death: Researchers

Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers have put an end to a 10-year debate over which form of a molecular messenger called Fas ligand is responsible for killing cells during programmed cell death (also called apoptosis).

1 Oct 2009

La Jolla Institute scientist Hilde Cheroutre earns the 2009 NIH Director's Pioneer Award

A scientist at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology has received one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)'s top awards -- the 2009 NIH Director's Pioneer Award. The prestigious prize carries with it funding for total costs of up to $4.7 million over five years, and is designed to support the work of exceptionally creative scientists, whose novel proposals offer the potential to make extraordinary contributions to human health.

24 Sep 2009

New data confirm link between Epstein-Barr virus and multiple sclerosis

Over the last 40 years, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) has been repeatedly associated with multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases. During the 2nd European Congress of Immunology ECI 2009 held in Berlin, Francesca Aloisi, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, will present new data that further support the link. In the brain lesions of patients with multiple sclerosis her team found abnormal accumulation of EBV infected B lymphocytes.

14 Sep 2009

Research study highlights unique aspects of tumor immunology

Immune responses are capable of killing tumors before they can be directed toward normal body tissue, according to new scientific findings published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

9 Sep 2009

New insights into identifying children at risk for autoimmune brain disorders

A new study by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health's Center for Infection and Immunity indicates that pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Tourette syndrome and/or tic disorder may develop from an inappropriate immune response to the bacteria causing common throat infections.

11 Aug 2009

Discovery of potential candidate protein for cancer vaccines

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have learned that some healthy people naturally developed an immune response against a protein that is made in excess levels in many cancers, including breast, lung, and head and neck cancers. The finding suggests that a vaccine against the protein might prevent malignancies in high-risk individuals.

4 Aug 2009

UV radiation from sunlight may trigger certain autoimmune diseases in women

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight may be associated with the development of certain autoimmune diseases, particularly in women, according to a study by researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health.

30 Jul 2009

Newly identified gene regulates immune cells' ability to harm the body

A recently identified gene allows immune cells to start the self-destructive processes thought to underlie autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and rheumatoid arthritis, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found.

17 Jul 2009