The Autoimmunity Center of Excellence based at the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research in Dallas, Texas aims at 1) advancing the knowledge of pathways and mechanisms that contribute to the development and amplification of Human Systemic Autoimmunity, and 2) developing assays and tools to monitor these dysfunctional pathways in patients. The specific proposed research focuses on characterizing triggers, sensors and helpers of systemic autoimmunity. It capitalizes on the availability of samples from pediatric patients, who manifest disease early in life, often present extreme phenotypes and lack co-morbidities that confound the phenotypes. It will focus on diseases where breakdown of tolerance to Nucleic Acids (NAs) and dysregulated production of Type I Interferon (IFN) and/or Follicular Helper T cells (Tfh) play central pathogenic roles. While the initial focus will be the study of patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), extrapolation of the Center findings to other systemic autoimmune disease scenarios will be pursued. To this end, BIIR has gathered a highly integrated multidisciplinary team composed of scientists (including immunologists, molecular biologists, bioinformaticians, software engineers) and Physician- Scientists/Clinicians. This multidisciplinary team has worked efficiently together for several years at bed-to bench and bench-to-bed translation to meet the challenges of Human Immunology and Medicine. BIIR has also established strong national and international collaborations. The Center will employ in vitro culture techniques using patient cells and knock-down assays of cell lines and primary human cells, immune profiling strategies reflecting human immune status and function, and an extensive infrastructure to support patient-based studies. Throughout the performance of these mechanistic studies, BIIR recognized the fundamental value of data sharing, data integration and data visualization. Thus, significant efforts have been placed at developing the right bioinformatics and software tools to make possible that clinical and research data provide the most useful information to advance clinical and basic discoveries.
The ACE at Baylor aims at 1) advancing the knowledge of mechanisms that contribute to the development and amplification of Human Systemic Autoimmunity, and 2) developing tools to monitor these dysfunctional pathways in patients. The proposed research focuses on triggers, sensors, and helpers of systemic autoimmunity and capitalizes on the availability of samples from pediatric patients who often have extreme cases of autoimmune disease.
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