uveitis

Immune Cells Produce Potent Packages of Anti-Inflammatory Molecule

Experimental Treatment Curbs Autoimmune Eye Disease in Mice

B cell

Our cells produce a wide range of chemicals necessary for good health, but when they cannot manufacture enough of these substances, scientists can use cells cultivated in their labs to pick up the slack. In a promising example of this approach, IRP scientists stimulated lab-grown immune cells to produce tiny bundles of an important anti-inflammatory molecule and used those packages to successfully treat a potentially blinding autoimmune disease in mice.

Experimental Treatment Wards Off Blinding Autoimmune Disease

Drug Candidate Calms Overzealous Immune Response in the Eye

damage to the eye caused by hyperactive immune cells

Our immune cells don’t like strangers and attack many organisms and substances that they have never seen before, including harmless ones. In autoimmune diseases, this reaction gets out of hand and our own cells are caught in the crossfire. IRP scientists have found that a new therapeutic compound can curb this sort of autoimmune carnage in the eye.

Remembering Robert B. Nussenblatt, 1948–2016

Robert Nussenblatt, NIH NEI

Last month we lost a remarkable investigator, Robert Nussenblatt, M.D., M.P.H., chief of the Laboratory of Immunology at the National Eye Institute (NEI). Bob was a world-renowned expert in uveitis, an inflammatory eye disease and a leading cause of blindness in younger people. He was instrumental in establishing the pathology of and treatment for uveitis. Bob was diagnosed with a metastatic cancer just a few months ago. He remained characteristically optimistic even as his prognosis rapidly grew worse. He died on April 17, 2016, at age 67 with his family by his side. The NIH staff just devastated to hear the news of his death, because so few knew Bob was ill.