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This year's BWH Biomedical Research Institute BRIght Futures Prize finalists are addressing cutting-edge themes in their research. Each of the three finalists hopes to receive the first-ever $100,000 BRIght Futures Prize, which will be awarded on BWH Research Day. Read about their work below, and beginning Sept. 17, vote for your choice here.
Robert Plenge, MD, PhD, BWH Division of Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy, Department of Medicine
What is your research project about?
Imagine that we knew more about how the immune system affects almost every kind of human disease, including cancer, heart disease, and autoimmune disease. My team wants to help answer several critical questions that weigh on the minds of clinicians and researchers studying the immune system. For instance, we know that the immune system fights viruses and bacteria when we get a cold or a cut. But how does it keep cells in the body from growing out of control, such as with cancer? Why does one patient with an autoimmune disease respond to treatment while another does not?
To answer these and other questions, we need a more detailed understanding of the way the human immune system works in sick patients.
Our project represents a highly innovative strategy to understand the biology of the human immune response. We will use cutting-edge gene technology, fresh blood samples and detailed clinical data from electronic medical records collected as part of routine patient care.
There are many pathways involved in the human immune response that have yet to be fully understood. By analyzing blood samples, we will study a pathway in the immune system that has been linked to a variety of immune-related conditions, such as asthma, heart disease and autoimmune diseases.
Using rheumatoid arthritis as an example, we will try to define a special genetic or molecular "signature" in this pathway-basically, a molecular fingerprint of the pathway. Once we locate this red flag indicating that a patient has rheumatoid arthritis, we will investigate if the signature can help us tell the difference between patients with rheumatoid arthritis, patients with rheumatoid arthritis who are receiving treatment, and healthy people.
What is the most exciting aspect of your research project?
Using the information from our project, we will develop diagnostic tests and find new uses for existing medications-a sort of "repurposing." These are two of the most exciting things we hope to come from our project.
Defining a signature will help us figure out if medicines approved for certain diseases can also be used to treat other diseases. For instance, if we find that the signature for rheumatoid arthritis is also found in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), then perhaps medicines to treat rheumatoid arthritis can also be used to treat IBD.
We also plan to develop simple blood tests to determine why some patients respond to a medication while others do not.
How will your research benefit people?
There is a pressing need to develop new drugs for patients with chronic diseases. Equally important is the need to prescribe the right drug to the right patient at the right time in their disease, which is known as personalized medicine.
If this can be done, society will benefit in several ways-from saving lives to lowering health care costs. We know, however, it will not be easy. Our project represents one step toward accomplishing these ambitious goals.
Click here to learn more about the other BRIght Futures Prize finalists >>