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| Target Portfolio >> AIRMID’s Novel Therapeutic Approach |
- T lymphocytes are a family of white blood cells of the immune system that play key roles in the body’s defenses against infection by attacking and destroying infectious pathogens.
- In sufferers of autoimmune diseases, some cells from a subset of T lymphocytes called effector memory T cells (T
EM cells) escape the control of the body’s immune system and attack and destroy the body’s own tissues. These disease-associated TEM cells are called autoreactive TEM cells. For example, myelin-specific TEM cells attack brain cells in MS patients, insulin-specific autoreactive TEM cells attack pancreatic cells in diabetes patients, collagen-specific autoreactive TEM cells attack the connective tissue in rheumatoid arthritis patients and autoreactive TEM cells attack skin cells in psoriasis patients.
- AIRMID’s founders showed that a specific protein, Kv1.3, from a family of proteins called potassium channels, is required for the function of T
EM cells.
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- AIRMID’s founders also showed that the disease-associated autoreactive T lymphocytes in patients with multiple sclerosis, type-1 diabetes mellitus and rheumatoid arthritis are effector memory T cells with elevated levels of Kv1.3 channels.
- AIRMID’s Kv1.3-specific inhibitors preferentially target T
EM cells by blocking Kv1.3 channels. These inhibitors thus suppress cytokine production and proliferation of TEM cells.
- This mechanism of action of AIRMID’s Kv1.3 blockers is supported by the beneficial effects of these blockers observed in studies of animals with autoimmune diseases.
- Other T cell subsets (naïve and central memory T cells) are spared because they utilize a different potassium channel, KCa3.1, for their function. These unaffected T cells will continue to protect the body from infection in the presence of an AIRMID Kv1.3 blocker, and therefore, significant effects on the immune response to infection is deemed unlikely.
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| October 2006 |
AIRMID receives Series A
financing from Biotechnology
Value Fund.
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