"Researchers trying to find a way to treat multiple sclerosis think theyve come up with an approach that could not only help patients with MS but those with a range of socalled autoimmune diseases from type diabetes to psoriasis and perhaps even food allergies. So far its only worked in mice but it has worked especially well. And while mice are different from humans in many ways their immune systems are quite similar. If this works it is going to be absolutely fantastic said Bill Heetderks who directs outside research at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering part of the National Institutes of Health which helped pay for the research. Even if it doesnt work its going to be another step down the road. In autoimmune disease the bodys immune cells mistakenly attack and destroy healthy tissue. In MS its the fatty protective sheath around the nerves in type or juvenile diabetes its cells in the pancreas that make insulin in rheumatoid arthritis its tissue in the joint.  Currently the main treatment is to suppress the immune system an approach that can leave patients vulnerable to infections and cancer. The new treatment reeducates the immune cells so they stop the attacks. The approach uses tiny little balls called nanoparticles made of the same material used to make surgical sutures that dissolve harmlessly in the body. Theyre attached to little bits of the protein that the immune cells are attacking the researchers report in Sundays issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology. Stephen Miller of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago had been trying a slightly different approach to treating MS. When normal cells die naturally through a selfdestruction process called apoptosis immune cells called macrophages come in and eat up the mess. The macrophages are carried to the spleen where they show these groundup bits of cells to other immune cells called Tcells. Its a kind of introduction that familiarizes the Tcells with the bodys normal cells. Then Tcells know not to attack healthy cells. Millers team had been trying to find ways to use this process to reeducate the Tcells. They have been attaching bits of the myelin that Tcells mistakenly attack to healthy cells from MS patients that were selfdestructing then infusing the concoction back into MS patients. The idea would be to introduce the myelin to the Tcells at the same time they were meeting the healthy tissue and educate them to leave the myelin alone. So far the team has only shown the process is safe  a phase  clinical trial. But Miller says the experiment also seemed to show they were beginning to repair the patients immune systems. However it was hideously expensive. It cost probably about a million dollars to treat  patients using live cells he said. Obviously the researchers needed something cheaper. Miller got together with Lonnie Shea a professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern. They substituted cheap little balls of plastic called polystyrene nanoparticles for the selfdestructing cells. These new nanoparticles stopped the course of a MSlike disease in mice the researchers found. But polystyrene is no good to use in people. It doesnt break down and contains a compound styrene that may cause cancer. Shea had another possibility called polylactidecoglycolide or PLG for short. It turns out this is an FDA approved substance that is used in resorbable sutures said Miller. There is nothing rare or exotic or strange here said NIBIBs Heetderks. The particles are easy to produce he said. This worked just as well in mice. It only takes an hour in a chemical bath to attach little bits of myelin to the nanoparticles of PLG. When infused into a vein theyre carried by the blood right to the spleen where the nanoparticles meet the Tcells. If the treatment was done as soon as the mice had their first MSlike attack the attacks stopped. The effects lasted for the entire lives of the mice Miller said. Whats great about the approach  Miller says is that it can be used to treat any autoimmune disease. For diabetes little bits of pancreatic beta cells could be attached to the nanoparticles. For a food allergy the part of the food that causes the allergic response could be attached.  You can try to induce tolerance to peanuts or eggs or shellfish or whatever you are allergic to he said. One shortcoming is that scientists dont always know whats causing an autoimmune disease. We know that in rheumatoid arthritis your joints get attacked but what we dont know really well is what specific protein in your joints is being attacked. We really need to know that before we can apply this therapy Miller said. Now the researchers are looking for funding so they can test this new approach in people. Theyre in discussions with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation to test it in people with type diabetes and the Myelin Repair Foundation to test it in MS patients Miller said. They may form their own company to develop it as a medical treatment something that would be years away. Mice dont live very long and its not clear if human patients would need repeat treatments. But the Tcells that are reeducated usually live for a long time in the body and have long memories Miller said. Its also clear the approach would not repair any damage already done by the disease so the best candidates would be patients having their very first symptoms. But it might be possible down the road to combine the nanoparticle treatment with another treatment to replace the damaged tissue in more advanced patients Miller said."