Scientists Map Network of Disease-Related Immune Genes
“These results help us refine a systematic network map that can serve as an instruction manual on how human immune cells function and how we can engineer them to our advantage,” said Alex Marson MD, PhD, director of the Gladstone-UCSF Institute of Genomic Immunology and senior author of the new study, published in Natural Genetics . The study, which was carried out in collaboration with Jonathan Pritchard PhD, professor of genetics and biology at Stanford School of Medicine, is also important for better understanding how variations in a person’s genes are related to the risk of autoimmune diseases. Immunity Insights from CRISPR Researchers know that when the immune system’s T cells—white blood cells that can fight infection and cancer—become active, the levels of thousands of proteins in the cells change. They also know that many proteins are interconnected so that a change in the level of one protein can cause a change in the level of another. Scientists represent the relationship be