It is the body's first line of defense against infections.
Complement works to kill microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts, viruses and parasites.
However, activation of complement has also been shown to be the major cause of tissue damage in certain life threatening conditions such as heart attacks and strokes. It is therefore in the interest of the medicine to be able to control complement activation. The three pathways of complement are activated by different mechanisms and involve about 34 different proteins that circulate in plasma or reside on cells. Activation of C5, the fifth component of the complement, results in the formation of the membrane attack complex which kills the invading bacteria. My research is centered on the C5 convertase, the enzyme that activates C5.