Autoimmune Life Blog

My son Peter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes just before his third birthday. At the time, he was in the stretch run of potty training. Incentivised with M&M’s, Peter was using the toilet more and more frequently. He was also insatiably thirsty.

For Bernard Khor, MD, PhD, scientific research has a distinct connection with another one of his passions: food. “Part of the reason I like food is that I think chefs have a lot in common with scientists,” he says.

We started this blog to bring more awareness and understanding of autoimmune disease, which is so common, yet often so misunderstood. According to the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, only 13 percent of Americans can name one autoimmune disease!

In the 1950s, when Jack Wimpress, a talented Boeing aerodynamics engineer, and his late wife, Doris, a dedicated nurse, began their family, they were a statistical anomaly. “Three out of four of our children developed type 1 diabetes,” says Jack. “Everyone told us that this wasn’t possible.”

Indigo Philo was a freshman in college when she began to get painful stomach cramps and an overwhelming sense of urgency to go to the bathroom.

Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (BRI) is waging a comprehensive fight against rheumatoid arthritis (RA). “During the last 15 years, treatments for RA have improved enormously with new therapies,” says BRI President Jane Buckner, MD, who is leading this work.

A day prior to her 51st birthday last year, Aline Keller fell in the shower. “Within one week I had so much pain and swelling in my hands and joints that I could barely walk,” she says.

We all know you can give blood to help ill or injured people who need it, but did you know you can also donate blood for research?

For most people, the onset of type 1 diabetes (T1D) seems to occur suddenly, often resulting in a trip to the emergency room with life-threatening complications.

Benaroya Research Institute (BRI) and Seattle Children’s Research Institute (SCRI) are pioneering the use of gene editing techniques in efforts to control type 1 diabetes (T1D).