Philip Cohen's research into the causes of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases has been boosted by the award of a grant of almost £1.7million from the Wellcome Trust to support his work over the next five years.
The grant is to help him unravel the MyD88 signalling network. This pathway plays a key role in helping to fight infection by pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses, by producing inflammatory mediators. However, the uncontrolled production of these substances is also a cause of many inflammatory and autoimmune diseases such as asthma, lupus, psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis, which affects millions of people worldwide.
'There is considerable interest in developing drugs to treat inflammatory and autoimmune diseases by targeting the protein components of the MyD88 signalling network,' said Philip. With this grant from the Wellcome Trust, together with the Programme Grant that I was awarded by the Medical Research Council a few months ago, my laboratory now has nearly all the funding in place that it needs to make inroads into understanding the MyD88 signalling system and to validate drug targets for the treatment of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The next few years therefore promise to be most exciting.'
Philip has also recently received a further grant of nearly £76,000 from MRC Technology's Development Gap Fund to help accelerate work over the next year aimed at validating a novel drug target in the MyD88 system that his laboratory has recently identified.
The grant is to help him unravel the MyD88 signalling network. This pathway plays a key role in helping to fight infection by pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses, by producing inflammatory mediators. However, the uncontrolled production of these substances is also a cause of many inflammatory and autoimmune diseases such as asthma, lupus, psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis, which affects millions of people worldwide.
'There is considerable interest in developing drugs to treat inflammatory and autoimmune diseases by targeting the protein components of the MyD88 signalling network,' said Philip. With this grant from the Wellcome Trust, together with the Programme Grant that I was awarded by the Medical Research Council a few months ago, my laboratory now has nearly all the funding in place that it needs to make inroads into understanding the MyD88 signalling system and to validate drug targets for the treatment of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The next few years therefore promise to be most exciting.'
Philip has also recently received a further grant of nearly £76,000 from MRC Technology's Development Gap Fund to help accelerate work over the next year aimed at validating a novel drug target in the MyD88 system that his laboratory has recently identified.