Preliminary results of the Laboratory of Autoimmunity Mosaics: SPbU
SPbU has announced the preliminary results of what the Laboratory that focuses on how autoimmune diseases originate and develop has achieved.
The Laboratory of Autoimmune Mosaics was established in 2016 under the mega-grant, one of the grants allocated by the Government to SPbU to attract the world’s leading researchers and an only grant in Russia in the field of clinical medicine. The head of the laboratory was appointed Yehuda Shoenfeld, an outstanding medical practitioner and scientist in Israel. The laboratory operates at the Research Park and clinics at SPbU. Today they have their own premises at the Twelve Collegia.
Yehuda Shoenfeld, Doctor of Medicine, Professor, founder and director of the Zabludowicz Center for Autoimmune Diseases at the Sheba Medical Centre in Israel, president of the International Congresses on Autoimmunity, the world’s leading scientist in the study, treatment, and prevention of the autoimmune diseases.
Today the research group comprises both young and experienced scientists from Russia and Israel: students, post-graduate students, general practitioners (pathophysiologists, immunologists, and clinical doctors). Within a year, they have achieved outstanding results in three areas. They delve into sarcoidosis: they suggest that sarcoidosis is an autoimmune disease. Although we don’t have evidence to make conclusions yet, nevertheless there are some results that can prove that we can develop and use new methods of treatment. They also study how autoimmune thyroiditis influence our psychology and behavior by testing on animals. They carry out a massive experiment on mice with induced autoimmune disease, an analogue of the disseminated sclerosis. They are trying to understand whether a new experimental treatment based on the helminth products and our body capacities can overcome the disease.
Moreover, they have made several publications, including a manual on the autoimmune diseases for general practitioners. The authors are 69 leading scientists and doctors from 13 countries worldwide. The four chapters are prepared by the SPbU’s scientists. They also published two articles in the world’s leading journals indexed in the WoS and nine articles in the Russian journals.
An autoimmune disease is a condition in which your immune system mistakenly attacks your body.
“The tentative results in all three areas appear to be quite promising. The next year will bring hew challenges to respond: to bring together all the data obtained and analyse in terms of the hormonal and immune profile to reveal their causes and mechanisms of development”, — said the deputy director of the laboratory and head of the Department of Pathology at SPbU Associate Professor Leonid Churilov.
“The new laboratory will be the place to hold research and educational events – it has all necessary facilities. I am glad that we all will work at the historical building at SPbU. In 2018, a group of researchers from SPbU, including students and post-graduate students, will take part in the autoimmune congress in Lisbon that will comprise St Petersburg section. A number of reports by SPbU’s scientists have already been included in the programme. Lisbon, then ST Petersburg University, will hold the Academy of Autoimmunity where the world’s leading pathologists and immunologists will deliver lectures” — said Prof Shoenfeld.
Interestingly, the Laboratory started its work where an outstanding immunologist and pathophysiologists Professor Efim London, who was nominated to the Nobel Prize in 1939 and made crucial breakthroughs in a number of fields, including autoimmunity.
Deputy Director of the Laboratory, head of the Department of Pathology, SPbU Associate Professor Leonid Churilov
The research seminar held at the day when the laboratory was opened featured reports on main areas the laboratory focuses on, reports by the researchers from the laboratory of diagnostics of autoimmune diseases at Pavlov Medical University, and a report on Prof London’s life and work.