Rheumatoid arthritis, an auto-immune disease that causes severe inflammation in the joints, connective tissues, muscles, tendons, and fibrous tissue, affects as much as one percent of the global population, especially women. Without effective treatment, most patients will eventually become disabled and many lose their jobs within five years of the onset of the disease.
Stephan Gadola, Professor of Immunology and Consultant Rheumatologist, is trying to unravel the mechanisms of the disease at the molecular level and provide a cure, not just for rheumatoid arthritis, but other auto-immune disorders.
‘As a practicing rheumatologist, I see patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and other auto-immune diseases. Currently, these patients are treated lifelong, with immuno-suppressing drugs that, while effective, put them at risk of serious infections or diseases, lie cancer’ says Stephan, ‘Since immune tolerance is something the body must maintain we are pursuing this research with iNKT-cells to allow patient’s bodies to re-balance their immune systems internally’.
Funded by Arthritis Research UK and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSCRC), and with the assistance of several experts in Chemistry, his research programme focuses on how a subset of specific white blood cells, called invariant natural killer T-cells (iNKT-cells), are activated by lipid binding proteins to drive the outcome of an immune response – like a switch – when an infection, auto-immune disorder, or cancer occurs. Unpublished results from testing of the iNKT-cells repertoire in patients with early rheumatoid arthritis suggest new ways of how iNKT-cells could be usd in the future to treat or even eliminate this debilitating disease.
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