Skip to main content
Search

Gene manipulation applications in autoimmune diseases 1

Part 1 of 3
Published on April 30, 2026   39 min

A selection of talks on Biochemistry

Please wait while the transcript is being prepared...
0:00
Hi, everyone. My name is Leo Ferreira. I'm an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina and the Hollings Cancer Center in Charleston, South Carolina. It's really a pleasure to tell you today about gene manipulation applications in autoimmune disease.
0:21
We tend to think of the immune system as an army that protects us from pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, and cancer. However, sometimes the immune system goes rogue and starts attacking our own body. It's like the body is at war with itself. This is manifested in a group of diseases called autoimmune diseases, where the immune system attacks our own tissues. There are almost 100 different autoimmune diseases. You have psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, vitiligo, thyroiditis, multiple sclerosis, Type 1 diabetes, and so on. They are all characterized by immune attack of specific tissues. Something about these diseases is caused by the immune system somehow losing control and attacking itself.
1:13
While these autoimmune disorders are relatively rare in isolation, if you combine almost 100 of them together, they actually affect almost one in 10 Americans, which is a very large number if you think about it. People have studied the etiology of these diseases, how they're caused, how long they go for, how to make them better. It's been extremely challenging for most autoimmune disorders, we do not know what causes them. There are some theories. It could be a viral infection, could elicit them, could be just some damage, could be just pure bad luck. There's, of course, a genetic component, but it's not perfect. If you do twin studies, for example, and if one twin has Type 1 diabetes, only a third of the cases does the other twin also have Type 1 diabetes. These are studies where same genes, same upbringing, same environmental factors. There's a lot of mystery as to what causes autoimmune disease and what keeps it going. But even then, what I will argue during this lecture is that we can still treat and even cure autoimmune disorders, even if we don't always know what caused them. Type 1 diabetes is

Quiz available with full talk access. Request Free Trial or Login.

Show
Hide

Gene manipulation applications in autoimmune diseases 1

Embed in course/own notes