Immune System Diseases

Allergies are one of the most common immune system conditions, impacting as many as one in five people. Common allergies include pollen, animal dander, dust, and foods including nuts, shellfish and milk.

Asthma is a common immune system disease that affects the lungs. As many as one in 13 people in America, including many children, live with asthma.

Nearly 1.8 million Americans will learn that they have cancer this year. There are more than 200 forms of this often devastating disease, which are characterized by the uncontrolled and destructive growth of cells.

Understanding how infectious diseases impact the immune system and vice versa is a key piece of BRI’s work. Our team aims to better understand how germs interact with the immune system and examine if and how vaccines and medicines help fight infectious diseases.

More than one in 200 Americans live with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Scientists at BRI are studying IBD from a variety of angles to understand what goes wrong and develop new ways to treat, stop and even prevent it.

As many as one in 1,000 people live with lupus (the most common form being systemic lupus erythematosus [SLE]). While no cures or therapies that provide a long-term remission (absence of symptoms) truly exist for lupus, there are a variety of treatments available that can help manage the symptoms.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects about one in 1,000 Americans and is twice as common in the Northwest, where approximately two in 1,000 people live with MS.

More than one in 100 Americans live with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). BRI was an early leader in understanding the genetic component of RA, and scientists at BRI continue their work to understand what causes it, how to prevent it, and how to better treat it.

Scleroderma is an autoimmune disease that affects the connective tissues of the skin and other organs. This disease can be tricky to diagnose and difficult to treat, but BRI scientists are working to change that.

For more than two decades, BRI has been a worldwide leader in research to predict, prevent, treat and cure type 1 diabetes.