If you want to understand the human immune system, try studying humans - not mice. That's what Mark Davis, PhD, urges in a special report on the immune system in the new issue of Stanford Medicine magazine.
For decades, most research on the immune system has used mice. Davis, director of Stanford's Institute for Immunology, Transplantation and Infection, launched Stanford's Human Immune Monitoring Center a few years ago to change the immunology research paradigm.
"Inbred mice have not, in most cases, been a reliable guide for developing treatments for human immunological diseases," Davis says in the special report, titled "Balancing act: The immune system."
As the editor of the magazine, I wanted to feature a story that showed how human-focused immunology research plays out. So I was glad to learn that the center is in the midst of its largest study so far - one to figure out the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome. A team led by Stanford professor of infectious diseases José Montoya, MD, is looking for meaningful patterns in the components of blood samples gathered from 200 patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and 400 healthy subjects.
"It's like dumping a hundred different puzzles on the floor and trying to find two pieces that fit," Davis says in our story. We also have a video about a patient’s seven-year battle with chronic fatigue, from despair to recovery.
Also covered in this issue:
- "I can eat it": on a revolutionary treatment for food allergies
- "Brain attack": on the struggle to help children with psychiatric illness caused by a malfunctioning immune system - a condition known as PANS or PANDAS
- "When bones collide": on a new view on the cause of osteoarthritis: autoinflammation
- "My rendezvous with insanity": a Q&A with Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, her memoir of surviving an autoimmune attack on her brain
- "The swashbuckler": on look back to the early days of molecular biology when Mark Davis cracked one of the greatest mysteries of the immune system
The issue also includes an article on efforts at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System to use peer-support services to help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, and a story on the growing concern that biomedical research results are often erroneous and efforts being made to solve the problem.
The issue was funded in part by the Institute for Immunology, Transplantation and Infection.
Previously: Stanford Medicine magazine opens up the world of surgery, Mysteries of the heart: Stanford Medicine magazine answers cardiovascular questions and From womb to world: Stanford Medicine Magazine explores new work on having a baby.
Illustration by Jeffrey Decoster
