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A peek inside some of the leading research labs reveals how scientists-turned-spies are hard at work figuring out what causes autoimmune diseases and how to keep the immune system from attacking you instead of protecting you.
This is a big challenge. According to the latest count from the National Institutes of Health, there are approximately 140 autoimmune diseases affecting millions of people.
Solving them requires patience, persistence, and even sophisticated techniques to spot suspects. Researchers use laser-driven machinery and brightly colored fluorescent dyes to distinguish rogue cells from normal cells.
Take type 1 diabetesIt occurs when the cells that produce insulin in the pancreas are gradually destroyed by rogue T cellsIn a biomedical engineering lab Johns Hopkins UniversityResearchers examine mouse pancreas cells on a computer screen. Red Marks killer cells. In yellow are the “peacemaker” cells that are supposed to reduce autoimmune reactions – but there are more of them.
Another type of immune cell, B cells, drive autoimmune diseases by producing antibodies that mistake healthy tissues for foreign invaders. At NIH, Dr. Iago Pinal-Fernandez studies myositis, a poorly understood group of muscle-debilitating diseases. Their research shows that rogue antibodies don’t just stick to the surface of muscles and damage them. They can get inside muscle cells and disrupt their normal functions in ways that help explain a variety of symptoms.
“When I started, nothing was known about the type of autoimmune disease we study. Now we’re finally able to tell patients, ‘You have this disease and this is the mechanism of the disease,'” he said.
In another NIH lab, Dr. Mariana Kaplan’s team is uncovering the root causes of lupus and other autoimmune diseases – what causes the immune system to go out of control in the first place – and why they more often affect women.
Today’s medicines reduce the symptoms but do not cure the problem. There are treatments now in early-stage clinical trials that aim to correct dysfunctional immune pathways.
At Hopkins, scientists are working on next-generation versions, which are not yet ready to be tried in people. In a lab, they are developing nanoparticle-based treatments to reduce pancreas-killing cells and increase “peacemaker” cells in Type 1 diabetes.
And in another Hopkins lab, researchers are developing what they hope will become more precise treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and other antibody-driven diseases — drugs that seek out “bad” B cells and destroy them.
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This is a documentary photo story curated by AP Photo editors.