A single injection of modified cells could halt the advance of rheumatoid arthritis, say UK scientists. The Newcastle University team is about to start small-scale safety trials of the jab, which will hopefully stop the immune system attacking the joints. The Arthritis Research Campaign, which is funding the project, said if successful the treatment would be ‘revolutionary’. It could be fully tested and available within five years. Rheumatoid arthritis is one of a family of ‘autoimmune’ diseases, in which the body’s defence systems launch attacks on its own tissues. In the case of rheumatoid arthritis, this means painful inflammation and progressive damage to the joints, eased only slightly by courses of painkillers and immune dampening drugs. The precise trigger for these attacks is not known, but the latest technique, so far tested only on cells in the laboratory, aims to ‘reset’ the immune system back to its pre-disease state. A sample of the body’s white blood cells is taken and treated with a cocktail of steroids and vitamins which transforms a particular type of immune cell called a dendritic cell into a ‘tolerant’ state. These cells are then injected back into the […]