Defects in development of regulatory T cells promote autoimmune disease by Adam Burrack, PhD Biology is a confusing beast sometimes. In particular the immune system. In particular the checks and balances between different branches of the immune system, each with different goals. Effector T cells protect the organism from exterior threats – potentially at the […]
Category Archives: T cells
Saturday Morning Research Review – January 14, 2017
Finding autoreactive T cells within type 1 diabetic pancreas samples by Adam Burrack, PhD We continue our series of descriptions of research output of the Human Islet Research Network. As a brief reminder, this consortium of NIH-funded researchers are working to develop methods to delay beta cell death, manipulate the immune system to prevent beta […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – November 5, 2016
Newly discovered connection between IL-6 and T1D onset by Adam Burrack, PhD Interleukins – the general term is cytokines – are like the hormones of the immune system: they can be produced by either cells of the immune system or infected tissue cells, and can influence the activation of immune cells and their movement throughout […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – October 1, 2016
Report on Human Islet Research Network, May 2016 meeting by Adam Burrack, PhD I recently had the chance to attend the annual meeting of the human islet research network in Bethesda, Maryland. This is a group of researchers funded through the National Institutes of Health, specifically the NIDDK and the Special Diabetes Program. The human islet […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – September 17, 2016
An important role for macrophage and T cell production of reactive oxygen species production in beta cell death by Adam Burrack, PhD Macrophages play a key role in diabetes onset in the mouse model of type 1 diabetes, the NOD mouse. Whether macrophages or T cells are the “final effector” of beta cell death is […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – April 23, 2016
Depletion of B cells using anti-CD20 antibody treatment does not reset B cell tolerance by Adam Burrack, PhD We have previously covered the work of Thomas Tedder at Duke University, who studies B cells in the development of type 1 diabetes. As I described in this post from December 2015, one potential method to inhibit […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – April 9, 2016
Peptide-MHC “nanoparticles” to switch autoreactive T cells to regulatory T cells by Adam Burrack, PhD As I have previously described in our basic science series, regulatory T cells are an important component of the immune system which, in healthy individuals, prevent inappropriate immune responses from developing into autoimmune diseases. In people with type 1 diabetes, […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – March 19, 2016
Hybrid-insulin peptides are key clinically-relevant target of T cells by Adam Burrack, PhD We return to two familiar topics in our series: the ground-breaking research of Katie Haskins and Thomas Delong at the University of Colorado Immunology Department and clinical samples available through the St Vincent Institute in Melbourne, Australia. For many years – perhaps since […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – March 5, 2016
The key role of dendritic cells in shaping the T cell response, as studied by Kristen Tarbell at NIH by Adam Burrack, PhD Why T cells of the immune system target beta cells in the pancreas for destruction is a complex problem with many partial answers. The answers to this question relate to genetics, the […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – February 13, 2016
Teasing apart the required components of the immune system for diabetes in mouse models by Adam Burrack, PhD Today’s topic will cut to the nitty-gritty of figuring out how type 1 diabetes (T1D) happens. Since we cannot do reductionist experiments in primates or humans – removing one component at a time and seeing whether each […]