$1.85 Million Grant Explores New Treatment for Rheumatoid Arthritis

Wynnewood, PA, July 21, 2010 --(PR.com)-- Affecting more than 1.3 million people in the United States alone, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a debilitating disease that causes pain, swelling, and stiffness in the joints. Dr. Laura Mandik-Nayak, Assistant Professor at the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research (LIMR), received a five-year, $1,856,250 National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant for a research project entitled: IDO in inflammatory pathogenesis and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

Currently, the exact cause of RA is unknown but researchers do know that with this disease a person’s immune system attacks his or her own body tissues. Although drugs to treat RA exist, there is a need to prevent and find new ways to treat this disease. In this research project, Dr. Mandik-Nayak is examining the role of an immune regulatory enzyme indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), which has been implicated in the inflammatory process associated with tumor formation.

Because IDO is thought to be immunosuppressive, it has been generally assumed that inhibiting IDO would make classic autoimmune disorders such as RA worse. However, research data has suggested the opposite, that IDO activity may actually be associated with the development of disease symptoms and inhibiting IDO alleviated arthritis symptoms in an animal model of RA. This project is exploring the complex role of IDO in inflammation with the long-term goal of defining the mechanism by which IDO modulates the immune response and providing new insights into strategies that can be used to manipulate this pathway to reduce or prevent RA. If successful, this could lead to a new approach for the prevention and treatment of RA and other autoantibody mediated diseases.

Dr. Laura Mandik-Nayak joined LIMR in 2007 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Washington University School of Medicine. She also serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Jefferson Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine. Dr. Mandik-Nayak received her B.S. in Biology from Bucknell University and her Ph.D. in Immunology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research is focused on inflammation and autoimmunity, in particular the cellular and molecular factors that lead to arthritis.

About Lankenau Institute for Medical Research
Founded in 1927, the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research (LIMR) is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research center located in suburban Philadelphia on the campus of the Lankenau Hospital. Part of Main Line Health, LIMR is one of the few freestanding, hospital-associated medical research centers in the nation. The faculty and staff at the Institute are dedicated to advancing an understanding of the causes of cancer, heart disease and diabetes. They use this information to help improve diagnosis and treatment of these diseases as well as find ways to prevent them. They are also committed to extending the boundaries of human health and well-being through technology transfer and the training of the next generation of scientists and physicians. For more information, please visit www.limr.org.

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