Autoimmune Life Blog

Words like “immunocompromised” are broad by design: They’re meant to encompass how a wide variety of conditions impact the immune system.

Before BRI Lab Aide Noah Biru had degrees in engineering and biochemistry — and was headed to Yale to pursue a PhD in immunology — he was a little kid who wanted to help his mom.

We’ve been living in a world of COVID-19 for over a year. In the face of a pandemic, BRI’s vision — a healthy immune system for everyone — has become more important than ever. We’re so thankful for the incredible support from you, our community.

When Micah Mansfield learned that he could help scientists better understand the immune system through the Sound Life Project, he didn’t think twice about signing up.

Raising a child with type 1 diabetes takes patience. Blood sugars rise and fall unpredictably, affecting nearly every aspect of daily life. It takes attention to detail.

To understand what causes type 1 diabetes (T1D), imagine a spy novel. It starts with a hero, the T-cell, that roams your body like James Bond. The T-cell hunts down enemies — bacteria and viruses — and snuffs them out. Then something goes terribly wrong: The hero becomes a villain.

BRI’s newest principal investigator, Carmen Mikacenic, MD, is used to working with dangerous pathogens. Still, when she started studying aspects of COVID-19, she took extra precautions.

One goal is to find markers that identify why some people with the virus don’t have symptoms while others get fatally ill. The sickest patients tend to have multiple health issues, which makes it hard to pinpoint the factors related to COVID-19.

COVID-19 has put a therapy called hydroxychloroquine in the spotlight — and, at the same time, shrouded it in confusion.

With a newly awarded $4 million grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, BRI and SCRI will now focus on using their novel approach to generate an engineered T cell product that can be used in a future first-in-human clinical trial.