Autoimmune Life Blog

BRI’s Matt Dufort, PhD, and Peter Linsley, PhD, led two new studies that could help doctors predict how quickly type 1 diabetes (T1D) will progress in some people, and match them with treatments that could slow it down. Dr.

In the late 1970s, Virginia Mason researchers had a groundbreaking idea: Use a portable pump to deliver insulin in patients with type 1 diabetes (T1D).

When people with diseases like lupus and systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (SJIA) are feverish and light-headed, doctors start to worry:  These symptoms can indicate a life threatening condition called macrophage activation syndrome (MAS).

Treatment options for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have been limited for most of Elisa Boden, MD’s career. Until a few years ago, she and her colleagues – including James Lord, MD, PhD, and Michael Chiorean, MD – have had only a few types of medications to treat IBD.

"My son Peter is one of eight students at his elementary school with type 1 diabetes. Ranging in age from 5 to 10, the diabetes kids are part of a small but mighty community built on care, comfort and normalcy."

Some people go the extra mile for their favorite cause.

Dr. Gerald (Jerry) Nepom, who founded BRI’s Diabetes Research Program in the 1980’s, and who led BRI’s growth as a world-class research institute for 3 decades, now devotes his time to a laser-focused effort on getting experimental therapies to patients.

While on a family vacation in Thailand, eight-year-old Ryan was helping his mother crush peanuts - a key Thai cuisine ingredient – when he started to feel itchy and his throat began to swell. Soon, he was having trouble breathing, and his mother rushed off in search of an epi pen.

BRI has made game-changing discoveries and significantly expanded our research and funding in recent years.

When her son was born with Down syndrome (DS) in 2002, Rebecca Partridge, MD, couldn’t find a pediatrician to provide specialized care. So she did what any pediatrician mother would do: She started the Seattle area’s first DS clinic.