Discovery of novel helminth immunomodulatory proteins for autoimmune diseases

This contract aims to identify novel parasite derived protein candidates as biologics to treat Crohn s and other diseases with high healthcare costs and no truly long term effective treatment optionsWe will screen stage specific proteins from Onchocerca volvulus that conceivably enable this parasitic helminth to chronically infect the human host by continuously modulating the innate and adaptive immune response of the human hostthe Ovolvulus genome encodes a promising reservoir of probable tolerogenic immunomodulatory proteinsOur long term goal is to identify parasite derived recombinant proteins that can suppress pro inflammatory autoimmune disease states and support a stable remissionSpecificallyin Aimusing well defined bioinformatic analysesOvolvulus excretory secretory proteins will be selected and expressedand then subjected in Aimto systematic screening in vitro for their immunomodulatory activities on activated human cells using methodologies developed and used in our previous studies of Ovolvulus derived proteinsIn Aimproteins that prompt the most effective suppression of ThThand or activation of Thresponses with no demonstrated in vitro toxicity will be analyzed in a complimentary screening assay with human lamina propria mononuclear cellsThe immunomodulatory products identified will have significant translational potential for the treatment of immune mediated disorders