T-CARE
| Patologia: | Encefaliti rare autoimmuni |
| Area Tematica: | Malattie Rare |
| Data di Inizio Progetto: | TBD |
| Data di Fine Progetto: | TBD |
| Finanziamento: | € 500.000,00 |
| Partenariato | IRCCS Istituto Neurologico “Carlo Besta” (Milano) University Hospital, Heinrich-HeineUniversity (Germania) University Hospital Frankfurt Center for Neurology and Neurosurgery (Germania) Università di Ginevra (Svizzera) RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences (Irlanda) Istanbul University,Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacology (Turchia) |
Autoimmune limbic encephalitis and Rasmussen’s encephalitis are considered rare to ultra-rare forms of autoimmune brain inflammation in children and adults presenting with seizures as well as behavioral (cognitive/motor) decline.
Current evidence suggests that both diseases often develop into irreversible circumscribed brain atrophy and scarring with devastating treatment-refractory focal epilepsy. This process is mainly driven by neuron- and potentially also astrocyte-directed T cell responses. Currently, there is no approved tailored treatment option for T cell responses prevailing in both disease and no approved immunotherapy at all.
Members of the T-CARE consortium have recently established and published mouse and rat models of autoimmune limbic encephalitis and Rasmussen’s encephalitis all involving T cell-driven focal immune responses in the brain.
The T-CARE consortium will establish strong collaborations between epileptologists and immunologists including model transfer for validation/reproduction of the experimental findings to obtain strong reliable data from two independent labs for each model regarding the role of T cells. It will independently test the application of specialized anti-CD3 monoclonal antibodies that have been shown to dampen autoimmune T cell responses on the clinical and paraclinical disease manifestations in a preventive and therapeutic setting.
With this large data-set in 3 relevant experimental models, we will aim at further development of the approach in tight collaboration with Sanofi, the provider of Teplizumab, a recombinant monoclonal anti-CD3 antibody already approved for children and adults with T cell-mediated type 1 diabetes (T1D) and conduct proof-of-concept clinical trials in autoimmune limbic encephalitis and Rasmussen’s encephalitis.