Specto Design is a Los Angeles La Jolla Researcher's Discovery Is Among Top Ten
By Gina McGalliard
La Jolla Light - February 13th, 2008 - A
finding by Hilde Cheroutre, Ph.D., a leading biomedical researcher for
the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, was chosen by
"Nature Medicine" magazine as one of the 10 most important advances in
the biomedical field in 2007.
The magazine said Cheroutre's work may lead to advances in the treatment of many autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
"Every
year they select among the millions of papers that are published, and
they select the most advanced papers," Cheroutre said. "Our study was
selected as one of the 10, which is quite an honor."
Cheroutre's
findings deal with the role that retinoic acid, which is a derivative
of vitamin A when it is broken down by the body, plays in combating
inflammation. Retinoic acid also plays a role in regulating the immune
system.
The lab
run by Cheroutre was the first to show how retinoic acid can increase
anti-inflammatory cells in lab mice, and they were also able to prove
that it is able to decrease inflammatory cells. If retinoic acid can
eventually be shown in further studies to either increase or decrease
inflammation in humans, it will have the potential to treat many
diseases.
Cheroutre
described autoimmune diseases, which "Nature Medicine" magazine
highlighted, as the body turning on itself. This can often result in
inflammatory diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid
arthritis.
"These are all diseases caused by the immune system not functioning," she said.
Vitamin
A, which people typically get large amounts of through their daily
diet, is broken down by the body and turned into retinoic acid. "The
body breaks vitamin A down into smaller substances that are taken into
the body, and we found that one of those derivatives is retinoic acid.
And retinoic acid is a very powerful tool," said Cheroutre. "That gives
us the opportunity to intervene with people with inflammatory diseases."
It
is her hope that her research on retinoic acid, which is still in the
very early stages, will lead to the development of drugs to treat
autoimmune diseases. The range of diseases that the use of retinoic
acid could potentially treat is wide, from arthritis, multiple
sclerosis, colitis, psoriasis, celiac disease, diabetes and
inflammatory bowel disease. Retinoic acid is already used to treat
certain types of leukemia.
"These
are just some of the inflammatory diseases that could be controlled by
this," she said. "It opens up a whole new world of opportunity."
However,
because the potential number of diseases that it could treat is so
large, much research will be needed to make the drugs specific to the
disease they are supposed to treat.
"You want to treat people for one thing but not a million other things," Cheroutre said.
Cheroutre
specializes in research in the mucosal tissue, tissue that comes into
contact with the environment outside the body, such as the skin, mouth,
lungs and the intestines. She said that this is a radical departure
from what most immune system biomedical researchers focus on, because
most research of the immune system focuses on inside the stomach. Her
area of study is also one that she is pioneering, because few before
her have looked at the mucosal system in depth, and she is considered
one of the world's leading researchers in that particular field.
"We
know very little about the mucosal system," she said. "Mucus is one of
the barriers that the immune system is using for protection."
Cheroutre
also described the mucosal system as "the front line of attack,"
because it is one of the first barriers a pathogen must cross before it
infects someone.
Cheroutre,
in addition to running a laboratory of 12 scientists at the La Jolla
Institute for Allergy and Immunology, is an adjunct professor at the
UCSD School of Medicine. She was educated in her native Belgium before
coming to the United States for her post-doctoral degree at the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. She worked as a
researcher at UCLA before moving to La Jolla. Her husband is the
director of the Institute and is also a biomedical researcher. The
couple has three boys.
"I do have my hands full," she said.
As
for what motivates her to devote her life to biomedical research, she
said her mission is to improve the quality of people's lives through
better health.
"You want to see the end result, which is healthy people," she said.
