Tested: A Reboot for the Immune System

• Jeffery Bluestone, who has been trying to discover how to keep the immune system from attacking the body through allergic reactions for 30 years, began his work by testing the OKT3 drug (used to stop the body's rejection of organ implants) to find other uses, namely a more effective treatment for Diabetes I.

• Through this work the drug has been developed into a sort of “homing missile” targeting malfunctioning immune system components without disabling the entire immune system, allowing correctly functioning T-cells to take over.

• The treatment worked phenomenally on test patients, not only preserving the body's level of insulin cells, which are attacked by the immune system in diabetes I, but actually increasing the capacity to produce insulin cells.

• Drugs like this that target only one small part of the immune system, in this case the receptors on T cells, can likely be used to treat a variety of other similar diseases from debilitating eye diseases to osteoarthritis.

• However, many current diabetes patients today will be unable to take advantage of this due to it not being approved by the FDA and the fact that it only works on recent diabetes cases, where there has not been too many insulin producing cells destroyed already.

This article I had read the perfect time, right after learning about how all the immune system components mentioned in the article work, so I had a very good background for it.
The treatment in the article seemed remarkably simple, kill only the bad cells and the good ones will replace them, but as I thought about how any drug would sweep over everything it encountered, I realized it would not be that easy. What amazes me is how opening this one door, creating a “homing missile” drug, will allow for so many other treatments, and even possibly cures, for other diseases. As many people in my family have allergies ranging from sneezing around pollen, to near death from eating peanuts, and so I know how allergies are and know what a great technology this could be. Whether or not this drug becomes approved for use though, I know that it will advance the science of medicine either way.

Source:

"Tested: A Reboot for the Immune System | Popular Science." Popular Science | New Technology, Science News, The Future Now. Web. 21 May 2010. .