Connecting Research and Experts with Journalists

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A research team led by the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology has identified the specific gene which triggers the body to produce disease-fighting antibodies -- a seminal finding that clarifies the exact molecular steps taken by the body to mount an antibody defense against viruses and other pathogens. The finding, published online today in the prestigious journal Science, has major implications for the development of new and more effective vaccines.

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La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology researchers studying an enzyme believed to play a role in allergy onset, instead have discovered its previously unknown role as a tumor suppressor that may be important in myeloproliferative diseases and some types of lymphoma and leukemia.

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Researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology have found that previous influenza infections may provide at least some level of immunity to the H1N1 “swine” flu. “The question we asked was, “Is the swine flu more like the seasonal flu or like a totally new strain of influenza where there would be no immunity?,” said Alessandro Sette, Ph.D., an internationally recognized vaccine expert and director of the La Jolla Institute’s Center for Infectious Disease.

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Researchers from the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology will take aim at several of the world’s most dangerous infectious diseases – tuberculosis, malaria and dengue virus -- in a five-year, $18.8 million federally-funded set of projects seeking to make new inroads toward vaccines against the disorders.

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A leading immunology research institute has validated the long-held and controversial hypothesis that antibodies – usually the “good guys” in the body’s fight against viruses – instead contribute to severe dengue virus-induced disease, the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology announced today. The finding has major implications for the development of a first-ever vaccine against dengue virus, a growing public health threat which annually infects 50 to 100 million people worldwide, causing a half million cases of the severest form.

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If you think of diabetes onset like an elaborate molecular drama, then a research team led by a La Jolla Institute scientist has unmasked a previously unknown cellular player, which is critical to proper insulin secretion. “Defective insulin secretion is a hallmark of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes,” said Catherine Hedrick, Ph.D., a scientist at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology, who led the team, which included researchers from the University of Virginia.

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A La Jolla Institute team, led by leading type 1 diabetes researcher Matthias von Herrath, M.D., has demonstrated the effectiveness of a recently developed computer model in predicting key information about nasal insulin treatment regimens in type 1 (juvenile) diabetes. Development of the software, the Type 1 Diabetes PhysioLab® Platform, was funded through the peer-reviewed grant program of the American Diabetes Association.

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A research team, led by La Jolla Institute scientist Joel Linden, Ph.D., has shed new light on the problem of insulin resistance, and identified the key participants in a molecular pathway that holds therapeutic promise for reducing the severity of type 2 diabetes.

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Michael Croft, Ph.D., a researcher at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology, has discovered a molecule’s previously unknown role as a major trigger for airway remodeling, which impairs lung function, making the molecule a promising therapeutic target for chronic asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and several other lung conditions. A scientific paper on Dr. Croft’s finding was published online today in the prestigious journal, Nature Medicine.

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Most of the time, the immune system is the body’s protector. But in autoimmune diseases, the immune system does an about face, turning on the body and attacking normal cells. A major discovery by La Jolla Institute scientist Amnon Altman, Ph.D., and his colleagues, of a previously unknown molecular interaction that is essential for T lymphocyte activation, could have major implications for stopping this aberrant immune system behavior and the accompanying undesirable immune responses that cause autoimmune diseases and allergies.