Fighting Alzheimer’s disease by empowering the innate and adaptive immune system
Munich Psychiatry Lecture Series | MPLS
- ! Cancelled !
- Date: Jan 23, 2018
- Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Michal Schwartz
- Department of Neurobiology | The Weizmann Institute of Science | Rehovot, Israel
- Location: Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry
- Room: Lecture Hall
- Host: Alon Chen
- Contact: alon_chen@psych.mpg.de
We further found that transiently blocking inhibitory immune checkpoints such as PD-1/PD-L1, regulatory pathways that maintain systemic immune homeostasis and tolerance in several mouse models of AD, was effective in reversing cognitive loss, and in modifying disease pathology. In analyzing the role of the brain myeloid cells, the microglia, under such pathologies, we found by using single cell genomics, that they are also kept under unique checkpoint mechanisms that are desirable in homeostasis, but become counterproductive under disease conditions when robust activity is needed. Overall, our studies suggest that unleashing the immune system rather than treating single neurological disease risk factors, can provide a comprehensive therapy that addresses numerous factors that go awry in the brain.