I'm conscious that I haven't updated here for a little while. Been away, been busy and (worst of all), my internet connection at home is currently dead. Anyway a few interesting things to report in the interim. The first was a story in a free newspaper in the UK (Metro) which I wouldn't normally pay too much attention to. However I looked into it and the sources were reputable so here we go. The story is here but I don't know if it will work outside the UK - apologies if not - so I will quickly paraphrase.
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| Fantastic green moss! |
Essentially there has been some recent research looking into ways to "reset" the immune system in people with auto-immune diseases like Multiple Sclerosis. People think CLIPPERS may also be an auto-immune disease (I am not a doctor). The scientists designed artificial "nano-particles" to attach to Myelin (which is attacked by MS) and essentially distract the immune system. The chief scientist was quoted as saying "The aim was to provide a targeted treatment unlike immunosuppression which weakens the whole immune system." The research paper details are here. Now this has only been tried in mice under very controlled conditions so far, so it is early days. My limited understanding is also that you have to have a very good understanding of the disease mechanism before you can design the appropriate particles - this is something we don't have currently in CLIPPERS. Still, with so few of us, it is encouraging that these kind of generic technologies might one day provide some hope for treatment of a whole range of diseases.
Interestingly the BBC had another angle about MS recently, which also concerned "resetting" the immune system, this time using an existing drug which has already been licenced for use in other diseases. This kind of low-cost translation of treatments across diseases is also something which can provide at least a modicum of hope to us reluctant members of the CLIPPERS club.
Read other articles in this series at Living With CLIPPERS.
Living With CLIPPERS by Bill Crum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
