Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Embryo survival gene may fight range of diseases | Essentials

Embryo survival gene may fight range of diseases

Excerpt:

A gene that keeps embryos alive appears to control the immune system and determine how it fights chronic diseases like hepatitis and HIV, and autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, scientists said on Monday. Although the experts have only conducted studies on the gene Arih2 using mice, they hope it can be used as a target for drugs eventually to fight a spectrum of incurable diseases. Lead author Marc Pellegrini at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Australia said the gene appears to act like a switch, flipping the immune system on and off. "If the gene is on, it dampens... the immune response. And if you switch it off, it greatly enhances immune responses," Pellegrini said in a telephone interview.

People:

Marc Pellegrini

Overall Sentiment: -0.0580198

Relevance: 0.95056

SentimentQuote
0.106913"If the gene is on, it dampens ... the immune response. And if you switch it off, it greatly enhances immune responses," Pellegrini said ...
0.088711"If the gene is on, it dampens ... the immune response. And if you switch it off, it greatly enhances immune responses," Pellegrini said in a telephone interview. "It is probably one of the few genes and pathways that is very targetable and could lead to a drug very quickly."
0.107041"The mice survived for six weeks quite well. Then they started developing this very hyperactive immune responses and if you leave it for too long, it starts reacting against the body itself," Pellegrini said. ...
-0.0615772"It's like an accelerator. In infectious diseases, you want to slam on the brakes on this gene, and for autoimmune diseases, you want to push the accelerator to make it work much harder to stop the whole immune response," said Pellegrini.
-0.0466459"It's like an accelerator. In infectious diseases, you want to slam on the brakes on this gene, and for autoimmune diseases, you want to push the accelerator to make it work much harder to stop the whole immune response," said Pellegrini. "The more the gene works, the less of an immune response there is. And the less active the gene is, the more the immune response is."
Sentiment Stats:
  • Number of Quotes: 5
  • Aggregate Sentiment: 0.1944419
  • Mean: 0.03888838
  • Standard Deviation: 0

Walter

Overall Sentiment: 0.0673639

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Additional Info:

FieldTerminology: immune systems

Overall Sentiment: 0

Relevance: 0.79326

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