Download Suppressing the immune system

Suppressing the immune
system
Solutions to improve treatment
Current immunosuppressors…
…suppress the entire immune system, leaving
patients more vulnerable to everyday infections and
higher rates of cancer.
However, this is necessary because the immune
system attacks parts of the body which are work
well and are needed (in MS, myelin is targeted,
causing demyelination) but we cannot isolate the
suppression to just one impact of the immune
system so to protect the targeted area we must
lower the guard of everywhere else.
What’s the better solution?
• STEP 1:
Take white blood cells from the person with MS
and insert large quantities of myelin antigens into
them. Then inject them back into the patient.
• STEP 2:
The cells then enter the spleen, which filters the
blood and helps remove old and dying blood cells.
During this process immune cells learn to
recognise the myelin antigen as harmless because
in the spleen, the particles are engulfed by
macrophages (white blood cells that engulf
pathogens and unwanted materials , then send
signals to other immune cells to target those
materials) so they are recognised as ordinary
dying blood cells by the immune system.
Macrophage from the blood
The effect
This creates immune tolerance to the myelin antigen and
directly inhibits the myelin responsive T cells that attack them.
It also has the advantage of achieving this protection without
altering or suppressing the function of the rest of the immune
system.
The results of the phase 1 trial show the treatment to be safe
and well tolerated. It reduced immune system reactivity to
myelin by 50-75% and prevented future relapses in mice for up
to 100 days, which is the equivalent of several years in the life of
an MS patient.
Our ideas to further these effects
• Simply attach the appropriate set of antigens to the white blood
cells to help treat different autoimmune diseases!
• Using a patient's white blood cells to transport the myelin antigens
to the spleen is expensive and labour-intensive so we thought
nanoparticles might be a cheaper and more accessible option.
A useful nanoparticle could be from a polymer called PLG
(Poly(Lactide-co-Glycolide)) because:
 It is made up of lactic and glycolic acid, both of which found in the
human body, so is unlikely to be rejected or attacked as a pathogen.
 It is biodegradable and will be dissolved naturally by the body.
 It is already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) for other uses so it will not have detrimental side effects and
the testing process will probably be accelerated.