We’re trying to bottle a little bit of Mother Nature that will help get people back into balance.
—Gregg J. Silverman, MD
“Following different clues, we have discovered that the human immune system contains naturally occurring antibodies that have the ability to down-regulate inflammatory response from the more primitive innate immune system,” Dr. Silverman says. “What this means is that this ancient innate part of our immune system is meant to respond dramatically, quickly, and vigorously to any kind of foreign threat. These are meant to attack infectious agents. The problem is when that same response becomes dysregulated and over-exuberant, it becomes one of the most destructive aspects of autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis,” he notes.
“The good news,” continues Dr. Silverman, “is that these antibodies also can suppress inflammation. We think we can use these antibodies to provide a targeted approach to suppress inflammation by pathways that appear to be very similar to those of corticosteroids, which are the most commonly used immunosuppressive agents for rheumatic and inflammatory diseases.”
But unlike corticosteroids, potential therapies using these natural antibodies would be much less likely to have serious side effects.
“It’s absolutely unexpected that we’ve been able to show very powerful properties equivalent to the strongest doses of corticosteroids while using very low levels of these natural occurring antibodies,” Dr. Silverman says. “We’re trying to bottle a little bit of Mother Nature that will help get people back into balance.”
Dr. Silverman says that thus far this research has been focused primarily in mice, but the investigators have found remarkable parallels between the mouse immune system and the human immune system.
“These are natural antibodies. They are a normal part of the immune system, and we’re trying to translate that into a therapeutic approach. We hope that because it’s a normal part of the immune system, it should have predictable properties when developed into therapy and should have a relatively safe and attractive profile,” he says.
“We’re very excited about what we have found,” Dr. Silverman continues. “We’re taking our first steps toward making recombinant mouse antibodies with the goal of making human antibodies in the near future. There are many steps in the process, but we’re making progress. We’re developing relationships and partnerships to help this come to fruition in a few years.”
