Advances Inmunology Research

Advances in Immunology Research


New tools and technologies have stimulated fresh understanding of the nature of immune response and the translation of that knowledge into methods of diagnosing and treating diseases. Here's a review of what's available.


Years ago, immunologists typically spent the bulk of their time at the laboratory bench. Their research involved peering into amicroscope and probably characterizing the different cells from a blood sample. And their understanding of the immune response was limited to what they could see and, based on that, what they could hypothesize.
That was then. Now an immunologist's work and the tools used on a daily basis differ considerably. Instead of being restricted to the visual examination of living cells, a researcher cannow take a holistic approach to understanding the immune system using a variety of tools and technologies. Scientific teams undertake collective studies of whole animals, organs and tissues, cells, and molecular pathways in the effort to understand the exquisitely complex network known as the immune system. As a result, the life science community gains continuously improved understanding of theimmune system, from B and T cells to molecular pathways.
"We see a much more detailed understanding of the action of cells in the immune response in association with a variety of different disease states," says Kristine Kuus-Reichel, director of research for the immunomics business unit at Beckman Coulter. "What is emerging is a more complex understanding of the science that involves many fields ofscience. We are understanding the mechanisms of the immune response and how it plays out in pathogenic disease."
Certainly such pathogenic diseases as cancer and AIDS present tough challenges to immunologists struggling to relate their fundamental research to the causes and cures of those and other devastating medical conditions. But the improved understanding gained in research laboratoriespoints the way to progress. "For some years now we've recognized the role of the cellular immune response in controlling viral infection and how that kind of knowledge can help us to devise new vaccine approaches for HIV and other diseases of the immune system," says John Shiver, senior director, viral vaccine research at pharmaceutical company Merck. "Based upon that knowledge, we've focused ourefforts on how to elicit the cellular immune responses and how to measure those responses."

THEMES OF RESEARCH

Vaccines represent a major thrust of immunological research. "Everyone's highest priority for the future is to develop an effective vaccine for AIDS; that will obviously be very challenging," says Barry Bloom, dean of the faculty and professor of immunology and infectious diseasesat Harvard School of Public Health. "One of the hot areas in general will be the development of vaccines," agrees Ted DeFrank, general manager of Pierce Biotechnology. "The data generated from the Human Genome Project enable specific peptides to be custom manufactured. The resulting peptides can be cross-linked to carriers without evoking an immune response to the cross-linker itself."
The basicresearch themes necessary to achieve those therapeutic aims have become evident. "Signal transduction is a very hot area right now," says Kevin Reagan, vice president of research and development atBioSource International. "The human genome effort has identified a number of structures that are likely to be important. But only when you start dealing with these at the protein level will you be able to usethem as targets. So understanding protein-protein interactions and the cascade of events that occur in the cell — and how a disease can adversely interfere with that cascade — is the only way in which you'll see advances." Jim Hengst, president and chief operating officer of ZeptoMetrix, makes a similar point. "In immunology," he says, "the biggest advances are in the area of proteomics."...