Amy E Lovett-Racke

Amy E Lovett-Racke

 Department of Microbial Infection and Immunity, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, USA

 
Biography

 Dr. Lovett-Racke's current research focuses on characterizing the T lymphocytes responsible for damaging the brain and spinal cord in multiple sclerosis. T lymphocytes are a type of white blood cell that are heavily involved in destroying anything the immune system identifies as foreign. Because the myelin sheath is recognized as foreign in MS for unclear reasons, T cells specific for attacking myelin are thought to play a large role in MS progression. Dr. Lovett-Racke determined that although all individuals have T lymphocytes specific for attacking myelin, they are only active in MS patients. This has led her to hypothesize that these T lymphocytes are the important cell type in MS and would be a good cell to target for future therapeutics. Rather than targeting T lymphocytes which are required to fight off natural infections, Dr. Lovett-Racke has focused her studies on eliminating critical proteins for myelin-specific T lymphocytes. One of these targets is T-bet, which is necessary for the transcription of the myelin-specific T lymphocytes. She has developed a small interfering RNA (siRNA) which is a molecule that essentially silences the effect of T-bet, and thus diminishes the myelin-specific T lymphocytes. She has successfully prevented and treated a mouse model of MS. She is currently optimizing the siRNA for human clinical trials with the hope that this strategy may be used as a therapeutic treatment of MS.

 
 
Research Interest

Immunology, Microbial Infection s, encephalitogenic T cells, multiple sclerosis

Global Experts in the subject
Aaron C Lewis Andreas Kalliakmanis Andreena Jolly
Antonio Gabucio Bibhas Kar CD Tripathi
Charles J Malemud Charles J. Malemud Chunhua song
David Pitt Evan C Meszaros Hassan AA
Judy A Streit Kaihong Su Kaleefathulah Sheriff
Kalipada Pahan Khosbayar Tulgaa Kunatum Prasidthrathsint
Mark Stephen Kindy María Perez-Ferro Meredith A Wylie
Michael D. Voigt Michael K Racke Mireia Guerau-de-Arellano
Mohammad Amin Sherafat Bafrouei Namrata Agarwal Noah Isakov
Olga Sanchez-Pernaute Parames C Sil Preeta Kaur Chugh
Pritam Sadhukhan Qingdi Quentin Li Raquel Benitez
Rina Aharoni Ruedi K. Braun Sam Mesiano
Sham Santhanam Soni Hardik K Sukanya Saha
Vasiliki E Kalodimou Vasiliki E. Kalodimou Walter H Meisen
Yelenna Skomorovska-Prokvolit Yu-Jia Chang Yue Liu