It is an entirely new form of treatment which has enormous potential over the next 20-30 years for diseases ranging from cancer and leukaemia to dementia and cystic fibrosis. His first goal is to transfer currently available gene therapy techniques to the Institute as the basis for setting up a local treatment facility. The focus of this research is to be on perfecting transfer systems involving the cells and genes required to correct genetic defects including those associated with cancer. It is the mechanism and logic of the decision making behaviour that occupies the interest of the Immune Regulation Group, which is led by Dr Phil Hodgkin . This year our primary focus has been on the regulation of the different classes of antibody made by the B lymphocyte.
B cells can produce seven different types of antibody, each with a distinct function.
It is important for the immune system to select an appropriate type of antibody for the challenging pathogen. A complete solution to the puzzle of how antibody class is regulated would provide valuable insights into how to prevent or reverse allergies and possibly the ability to improve vaccine design. Over the last year we have been trying to uncover these rules and discovered that regulation can be accommodated into a remarkably simple model. B cell differentiation and antibody class switching follow simple rules that are linked to division number. For example, in the presence of IL-4, B cells switch to IgG1 after the third division round, and to IgE after the sixth.