Casting off: Leaving autoimmune disease behind thanks to an innovative treatment

Research team makes decisive breakthrough

24-Sep-2024 - Using the motto “Lichtet den Anker und segelt der Erkrankung davon!” (“Raise anchor and leave your illness behind”), the team at Department of Medicine 3 – Rheumatology and Immunology at the Deutsches Zentrum für Immuntherapy, Uniklinikum Erlangen, FAU has discovered an innovative treatment ...

How a “date” between immune cells makes rheumatism disappear

Major success: New approach for treating autoimmune diseases

06-May-2024 - Dates don’t always work out the way you would like. This is the premise on which scientists at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have developed a new approach towards treating autoimmune diseases. They brought two types of immune cells, B cells and T cells, together at one ...

Revolutionary cell therapy: rebooting the immune system stops autoimmune diseases

Single infusion of CAR-T cells replaces immunosuppressive drugs

23-Feb-2024 - In March 2021, doctors at FAU treated a young woman with a severe autoimmune disease with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells for the first time in the world. Today, almost three years later, they have now been able to publish a pilot study in the New England Journal of Medicine and show that ...

Immune cells strengthen bones

New molecular mechanism discovered in inflammatory bone loss

20-Feb-2024 - In osteoporosis, bone mass is lost and bones break more easily. The increased bone loss is either triggered by a hormonal imbalance or as the result of inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or chronic inflammatory bowel diseases. A team of researchers at Department of Medicine 3 – ...

Pushing the reset button on autoimmune diease

"What is special about this is that a single infusion of CAR T cells brought down the inflammation and autoimmune response like a house of cards"

21-Sep-2022 - At Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), patients with severe forms of autoimmune diseases are being treated with cells from the body that have been genetically modified, which are known as CAR T cells. This study is the first of its kind in the world. Physicians were astounded ...

Inflammation in fatty tissue: New approaches for treating obesity

A team of researchers have discovered a factor that may help trigger obesity

31-Mar-2022 - Researchers at the Institute of Microbiology – Clinical Microbiology, Immunology and Hygiene at Universitätsklinikum Erlangen and Trinity College Dublin have discovered a factor that may be involved in triggering obesity. What causes obesity? The researchers investigated how immune cells work ...

Milk may exacerbate MS symptoms

Cow's milk protein triggers autoimmune response in mice that damages neurons

03-Mar-2022 - Multiple sclerosis sufferers often complain of more severe disease symptoms after consuming dairy products. Researchers at the Universities of Bonn and Erlangen-Nuremberg have now found a possible cause for this. According to the study, a protein in cow's milk can trigger inflammation that ...

How Cells Correctly Choose Active Genes

Formation of Transcription Factories Resembles Condensation of Liquids

09-Nov-2021 - It is essential for cells to control precisely which of the many genes of their genetic material they use. This is done in so-called transcription factories, molecular clusters in the nucleus. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität ...

Small protein is difficult for phagocytes to digest

30-Jul-2021 - Multiple myeloma is a type of bone marrow cancer that mainly affects people over the age of 60 and in many cases cannot be cured. Researchers at the University Hospital of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have now found a new approach for a possible therapy of this ...

Riesling for the immune system?

How alcohol in moderation has a positive effect on impaired immune reactions

15-May-2020 - We all know that excessive consumption of alcohol is bad for our health. Moderate quantities of alcohol, however, can be beneficial to our health in some circumstances. In a paper published in Nature, a team of researchers from FAU shows that alcohol modifies the immune system in a very specific ...