Chronic inflammatory diseases occur when the immune system, usually a finely tuned network, overreacts and attacks healthy tissue. Current treatments often rely on immunosuppressive drugs, such as cortisone, which reduce immune activity but also leave the body more vulnerable to infections.
Prof. Andreas Ramming, immunologist and Deputy Director of the Department of Medicine 3 at Uniklinikum Erlangen, is taking a different approach: reactivating the body’s own cellular defense mechanisms to prevent healthy cells from being mistakenly attacked. This strategy offers new hope for conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and spondyloarthropathies, while avoiding the drawbacks of general immunosuppression.
His team was recently awarded the ERC Proof of Concept grant for this innovative strategy, marking an important milestone on the path to the first human trials.
The potential: a new class of targeted therapeutics that could change the way chronic inflammatory diseases are treated, making therapies more precise and safer for patients.
