Researchers at the University's Beirne B. Carter Center for Immunology Research recently received an $8.2 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to study how the body removes diseases infecting the immune system from the body.\nMicrobiology and Pathology Prof. Thomas Braciale and Microbiology Professor Young Hahn will study Interleukin-10, or IL-10, a regulatory chemical produced by the immune system as part of the human body's response to diseases. Interleukin-10 also is responsible for stopping the body's immune response from causing injury to itself.\nBraciale will be studying IL-10's effects on the immune system's response to the flu, while Hahn is studying IL-10's effect on Hepatitis C in mice.\n"The immune system is really a two-edged sword," Braciale said. "On the one hand it's producing molecules that can kill the virus-infected cells, but at the same time those molecules have the capacity to injure normal cells if they're not controlled."\nThe immune system produces inflammatory chemicals to kill virus-infected cells and stop the infection from spreading, Braciale said. IL-10 is an anti-inflammatory chemical that stops the production of these virus-killing - but potentially harmful - chemicals.\nAs such, the balance of the body's distribution of IL-10 is important in fighting off diseases like influenza. Research conducted at the University may even help scientists counter more potent strains of the virus, including H1N1 swine flu.\nWhile swine flu behaves much like the regular seasonal flu, Braciale said the coat protein receptors on the swine flu H1N1 virus are different enough from the regular flu virus that more people are susceptible to contracting swine flu. As a result, swine flu is more likely to cause serious cases simply because it is more likely to infect people to begin with. Because of this higher potential for serious cases, Braciale hopes to find out what causes some people to contract more serious illnesses as a result of the flu.\nBraciale has hypothesized that the one percent of people who suffer more serious illnesses as a result of influenza become sicker because their bodies do not produce enough IL-10. As a result, their immune systems may end up causing too much damage to their bodies, which can result in pneumonia and other flu-related diseases, Braciale said.\nBraciale will test his hypothesis by studying patients who have contracted the flu.\n"One of the big challenges is to try to get information from people ... who go to Student Health and are diagnosed with influenza but it's not severe," Braciale said.\nSuch individuals probably have adequate levels of IL-10, Braciale said, and his research team would like to sample them, but it may be difficult to take samples from people who are more or less healthy and have little incentive to have their lungs probed. People with more severe cases, however, will already have minor operations on their lungs, so it should generally be easier to sample them, Braciale said.\nWhile Braciale's project hypothesizes that having too little IL-10 may make the immune system overly aggressive in its response to influenza, Hahn's research hypothesizes that having too much IL-10 makes it more difficult for the immune system to combat hepatitis C.\nTo test her hypothesis, Hahn will study viral antigens analogous to hepatitis C in mice. Her research team will administer IL-10 to the infected mice to see whether their immune systems are inhibited by the chemical, Hahn said.\n"The most [challenging aspect] will be [seeing] what we learn from the mouse [and deciding] whether it is really happening in humans," Hahn said.
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