DOHA: Sidra Medical and Research Center, which collaborates with internationally-renowned scientists to carry out research to pave the way for new cancer therapies, will team up with the US National Institutes of Health to research into autoimmune diseases and cancer.
A group of scientists including Chief Research Officer of Sidra Medical and Research Center, Dr Francesco M Marincola, has discovered that a gene called Bach2 may play a central role in the development of a range of allergic and autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, asthma, Crohn’s disease, celiac disease, and type-1 diabetes. The research has implications for the development of new therapies to target cancer. The findings were published in the prestigious journal Nature on Sunday.
The authors suggest that these findings may have implications for cancer treatment, since cancers use regulatory T cells to prevent their own destruction by antitumour immune responses. The team is now working toward manipulating the activity of the Bach2 gene with the goal of developing a new cancer immunotherapy. As this study was conducted in mice, it must be replicated in humans before its findings can be applied in a clinical setting.
“Sidra Medical and Research Center will continue along this line of research through direct collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to extend this observation toward its practical application to modulate the outcome of immune diseases by genetically regulating the function of Bach2 or other factors that regulate immune cell function,” said Dr M Marincola, who was involved in the study.
Sidra plans to develop a facility where reprogrammable cell therapy can be conducted. A delegation led by David F Stroncek, MD, Chief of the Cell Processing Section at the NIH will visit Sidra in June to begin discussing future collaboration in the creation of a reprogrammable cellular therapy facility, which will become a resource for Sidra’s local, regional and international partners and collaborators.
The Peninsula
