According to a news story at sciencedaily.com, Dr. Li Wen and colleagues at Yale University have been able to successfully prevent and treat early type 1 diabetes in mice engineered to express a human antibody (CD20) on immune B cells. I am trying to find the article in the Journal of Clinical Investigation but the story must have been a pre-release, since the December issue isn't available yet online or at pubmed. Anyway, B cells expressing this antibody have been targeted in rheumatoid arthritis, another autoimmune disease, with some success. It took some time to develop the appropriate tools to do this in a model of type 1 diabetes, but it seems like the results are promising. Once the article becomes available, I will try to find some answers to my many questions regarding this research.
Reference from sciencedaily.com: Journal of Clinical Investigation (2007, December 3). Treating Type 1 Diabetes By Eliminating B Cells. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 3, 2007, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2007/12/071203190636.htm
Update Dec-06-2007: A link to the article can be found here.
1 comment:
too bad Shane didn't choose to work in that lab. They must be pretty stoke with those findings. I'll ask Shane if he can get the inside scoop at the water cooler...
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