Jefferson Awarded Multi-Million Dollar NIH Grant to Create a Center of Excellence for Autoimmune Diseases
The Department of Neurology at Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience
has been awarded a multi-million dollar grant from the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) for the creation of a center of excellence
to study autoimmune diseases from basic science research to its
translation into clinical applications. The five-year grant initially
totals over $4 million, but could be as much as $10 million by the end
of award period. The center is one of nine in the country and the only
one in the Pennsylvania.
“Our
priority for this award and center is to translate basic science
research into practical, clinical applications in autoimmune diseases,”
said Abdolmohamad Rostami, M.D. Ph.D., professor and chair of the
Department of Neurology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas
Jefferson University; director of the Multiple Sclerosis and
Neuroimmunology Research Laboratory; and director of the new center.
“Primarily we will be focusing on multiple sclerosis (MS), and systemic
lupus erthematosus (SLE), but we will also be investigating many other
autoimmune diseases like scleroderma. The center’s team will
investigate how these diseases are produced, with the ultimate goal of
finding new and successful ways to treat them.”
Currently, Dr. Rostami is investigating the role of Th17 cells, a pro-inflammatory T-cell subset, in MS and ways to suppress
these cells in hope of finding better treatments for the disease. His laboratory has shown that interkeukin-27, a cytaline produced by
T-cells,
can suppress Th17 cells. They have also shown that IL-27 can block the
onset or reverse the disease in animals with MS-like disorder. “It
appears that one of the ways that recovery from an MS exacerbation
occurs is that part of the immune system is shut off, suppressing the
immune response in the brain. IL-27 through suppression of Th17 cells
appears to be crucial in this process,” said Dr. Rostami.
Other
researchers of the Autoimmune Diseases Center of Excellence at
Jefferson are: Sergio Jimenez, M.D., professor, Department of
Dermatology & Cutaneous Biology, director, Scleroderma Center, and
co-director, Jefferson Institute of Molecular Medicine; Timothy Manser,
Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology &
Immunology; Thomas Leist, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor, Department
of Neurology; Guang-Xian Zhang, M.D., Ph.D, research associate
professor, Department of Neurology; Bogoljub Ciric, Ph.D., research assistant professor, Department of Neurology; and Ziaur Rahman, Ph.D., research assistant professor, Department of Microbiology & Immunology.
Media Only Contact:
Ed Federico
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital
Phone: (215) 955-6300
Published: 10/29/2009