Chen Lab

Research focus

NIH R01 · 2024

Targeted depletion of programmed death-1 positive cells, a method that not only stops autoimmune attack but also preserves adaptive immunity

Project Summary Autoimmune diseases (ADs) affect 50 million Americans and 12.5% of people worldwide, and for the vast majority of AD patients, there is no cure or effective prevention methods. The root cause of ADs is immune attack on self-tissues by auto-reactive effector lymphocytes and antibodies secreted by the lymphocytes. Therefore, lymphocyte suppression has been utilized as a strategy to ameliorate ADs. This strategy has yielded drugs that slow the progression of some ADs but do not prevent or cure ADs. Further, these drugs cause long-term immune deficiency and render AD patients susceptible to lethal opportunistic infections. One core reason for these deficiencies is the failure of…

From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.