Multiple sclerosis successfully reversed in animals
August 11, 2009
This is Dr. Jacques Galipeau of the Jewish General Hospital Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University. Credit: Claudio Calligaries/McGill University
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new experimental treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS) completely reverses the devastating autoimmune disorder in mice, and might work exactly the same way in humans, say researchers at the Jewish General Hospital Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University in Montreal.
MS is an autoimmune disease in which the body's own immune response attacks the central nervous system, almost as if the body had become allergic to itself, leading to progressive physical and cognitive disability.
The new treatment, appropriately named GIFT15, puts MS into remission by suppressing the immune response. This means it might also be effective against other autoimmune disorders like Crohn's disease, lupus and arthritis, the researchers said, and could theoretically also control immune responses in organ transplant patients. Moreover, unlike earlier immune-supppressing therapies which rely on chemical pharamaceuticals, this approach is a personalized form of cellular therapy which utilizes the body's own cells to suppress immunity in a much more targeted way.
GIFT15 was discovered by a team led by Dr. Jacques Galipeau of the JGH Lady Davis Institute and McGill's Faculty of Medicine. The results were published August 9 in the prestigious journal Nature Medicine.
GIFT15 is composed of two proteins, GSM-CSF and interleukin-15, fused together artificially in the lab. Under normal circumstances, the individual proteins usually act to stimulate the immune system, but in their fused form, the equation reverses itself.
"You know those mythical animals that have the head of an eagle and the body of a lion? They're called chimeras. In a lyrical sense, that's what we've created," said Galipeau, a world-renowned expert in cell regeneration affiliated with the Segal Cancer Centre at the Jewish General and McGill's Centre for Translational Research. "GIFT15 is a new protein hormone composed of two distinct proteins, and when they're stuck together they lead to a completely unexpected biological effect."
This effect, explained Galipeau, converts B-cells -- a common form of white blood cell normally involved in immune response -- into powerful immune-suppressive cells. Unlike their better-known cousins, T-cells, naturally-occurring immune-suppressing B-cells are almost unknown in nature and the notion of using them to control immunity is very new.
"GIFT15 can take your normal, run-of-the-mill B-cells and convert them -- in a Superman or Jekyll -Hyde sort of way -- into these super-powerful B-regulatory cells," Galipeau explained. "We can do that in a petri dish. We took normal B-cells from mice, and sprinkled GIFT15 on them, which led to this Jekyll and Hyde effect.
"And when we gave them back intravenously to mice ill with multiple sclerosis, the disease went away."
MS must be caught in its earliest stages, Galipeau cautioned, and clinical studies are needed to test the treatment's efficacy and safety in humans. No significant side-effects showed up in the mice, he said, and the treatment was fully effective with a single dose.
"It's easy to collect B-cells from a patient," he added. "It's just like donating blood. We purify them in the lab, treat them with GIFT15 in a petri dish, and give them back to the patient. That's what we did in mice, and that's what we believe we could do in people. It would be very easy to take the next step, it's just a question of finding the financial resources and partnerships to make this a reality."
11 hours ago
http://www.thenat...916/1036
Yes, for English speakers. The German meaning of "gift" is poison.
You are both right. Chimera is the generic term for such mythological creatures. Gryphon is the specific term for the
eagle/lion combination.
It's a kind of manufactured AIDS, a lousy way to die!
Back to the drawing board...
I love advances in biology and chemistry with protien synthesis and us 'human' learning and naming everything we find but i guess i watched to many zombie movies as a kid and it scares the bejesus out of me to think we might one day accidentally introduce a material that kills us as a species 20 generations later, by accident.
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PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS QUESTION IF YOU ARE KNOWLEGDABLE
I my old science courses we were told that women essentially were born with all the eggs they would produce in life already formed or staged ready for their bodies to develop and a hormone to push them out one at a time. Now after more courses I realize that no cell in the body lives for that long.... so is this true in some fashion?? or (hypothetical) if humans could stay in our twenties and thirties say 20 extra years could a woman still have eggs to reproduce??
i know the question is off topic but i figure people in biology would come to this article
Thanks in advance
The term chimera has also come to mean, more generally, an impossible or foolish fantasy.
Maybe that is the best term?
I think the immuno-suppression is only temporary while the disease is overcome. It does say no serious side-effects. A complete lack of immunities I would call a side-effect.
Perhaps the mice were not asked the right questions ..
tkjtkj@gmail.com
http://en.wikiped..._therapy
-Restoring the symbiotes we evolved with (or less revolting facimiles)? Our overevolved immune systems are the inevitable result of overcrowding and living with our domesticated animals, which led to exposure to all manner of noxious infestation, and the bodys desperate attempts to compensate. Devolve the species by outsourcing the higher functions before it is too late!!