Joint Pain Forum – News you can use!
'Enterprizing' Vaccine For
Rheumatoid Arthritis
05
Oct 2007
As
edited by Joint-Pain-Forum.com
Enterprize finalist, Dendright, will be pitching its vaccine technology for
rheumatoid arthritis to venture capitalists and the public for a $100,000 prize
next week.
The mechanism to turn off an auto-immune disease once it has
started was discovered in 2003 by UQ rheumatologist, Professor Ranjeny Thomas,
and means that a vaccine will re-educate the immune system so that it will not
attack itself.
"Vaccines re-educate the immune system," said Professor
Thomas, who is a rheumatologist and Director of Dendright.
"What's
different here is that this vaccine targets the specific antigens underlying
rheumatoid arthritis," she said.
Phase one human clinical trials of the
vaccine are planned in Queensland as a cell therapy, where dendritic cells are
collected from the patient, treated and re-injected. Future development is
focused on targeting dendritic cells in the body (in vivo).
Rheumatoid
arthritis is an incurable auto-immune disease which affects one in every 100
people worldwide as is one of the most common causes of chronic disability in
the community.
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Article
adapted by
www.Joint-Pain-Forum.com from original press release.
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"Most auto-immune diseases have their onset when people are aged in their 20s to
40s, and they last a lifetime," Professor Thomas said.
In rheumatoid
arthritis, the immune system inappropriately attacks joints, eating away at the
cartilage and damaging the underlying bone. This abnormal immune response is
promoted by smoking in people who have at-risk genes.
Rheumatoid
arthritis affects three females to every one male contracting the condition.
Symptoms include pain, swelling of joints, and later deformity and loss of
function in hands, knees and other joints.
According to Dr Genevieve
Giuliani, Uniquest Commercialisation and Innovation Manager and member of the
Dendright management team, the drive and commitment of Professor Thomas to
alleviate the suffering of rheumatoid arthritis patients is key to the success
of the program.
"The vaccine will be used in the first instance to treat
patients already affected and stop further damage," she said.
"The
future in vivo therapy will be more widely applicable, easier to deliver, and
quicker to market than cell therapy."
Dr Giuliani said that winning the
$100,000 would help to appoint a CEO for Dendright, to drive fundraising
efforts, manage the regulatory approvals process and oversee the
commercialization of the vaccine.
Dendright is the company created to
commercialise this novel vaccine technology based on dendritic cells for the
treatment of auto-immune diseases.
Dendright will pitch their business
idea with six other finalists to venture capitalists and the public at
Enterprize Pitch Day from 4pm on Thursday, October 11 at The Queensland State
Library Auditorium, Southbank.
Places are limited. For reservation
enquiries to Enterprize Pitch Day, email the Event Manager, Amy Hyslop,
events@business.uq.edu.au.
The University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia
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