New auto-immune treatment hope
This is one of the only treatments that works by increasing 'good' regulating cells and not attacking the 'bad' cells, according to the researchers. Image: Henrik5000/iStockphoto Australian researchers have uncovered a potential new way to regulate the body’s natural immune response, offering hope of a simple and effective treatment for auto-immune diseases.Auto-immune diseases result from an overactive immune response that causes the body to attack itself.The new approach involves increasing good regulating cells in the body, unlike most current research which focuses on stopping “bad” or “effector” cells, says lead researcher Dr Suzanne Hodgkinson, from UNSW’s Faculty of Medicine and Liverpool Hospital.The researchers induced the body’s T-cell front-line defences by injecting cell-signalling proteins called cytokines, in particular cytokine Interleukin-5 (II-5 cytokine).When T-regulatory cells are grown in a way to make them specific to a particular protein they develop receptors for the Il-5 cytokine. The Il-5 cytokine boost allows the body’s immune system...