Autoimmune Life Blog

Dr. Smithmyer is a staff scientist at Benaroya Research Institute (BRI) in the Center for Interventional Immunology. She has kindly agreed to speak with us about what the BRIDge Biorepository is and its importance to the work that scientists like her do in the realm of type 1 diabetes.

BRI investigators Eddie James, PhD, and Caroline Stefani, PhD, are teaming up to take a unique approach to type 1 diabetes research.

Learn about one of the first projects launched with this funding, where Eddie James, PhD, and Caroline Stephanie, PhD, are exploring a new approach to treat type 1 diabetes.

Learn how Eddie James, PhD, Peter Morawski, PhD, and other BRI scientists are exploring tissue-specific immunology and why this approach is fueling discoveries.

BRI researchers are working to develop a groundbreaking new approach to treat type 1 diabetes (T1D). They aim to turn T cells that cause T1D into regulatory T cells (Tregs) that protect you from T1D.

The first symptoms Linda Sloate experienced were aching hands and pain that shot up her arms. She had carpal tunnel surgery in both hands. Then she felt pain in her feet while she was teaching kindergarten and running around after her three children.

James Lord, MD, PhD, has a simple way of explaining the immune system. “It’s not a homogenous pot of stew,” he says. “It’s a carefully orchestrated dance, and doing the right thing at the right time is critical. But it’s very hard to predict the choreography.”

Without clinical research participants, we might not have groundbreaking cancer treatments like immunotherapy or vaccines for polio, rubella and other life-threatening diseases.

In April 2017, Steve Gordon and his daughter, Callie Triller, hiked to Machu Picchu in Peru. Seven months later, Steve started experiencing severe joint pain and learned he had rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Gretchen Schoenstein has dealt with multiple autoimmune diseases — including Hashimoto’s disease and sarcoidosis — for over two decades.