An article at Forbes describes Celacade technology by Mississauga, Ontario based Vasogen, Inc., an immune modulation therapy to treat chronic heart failure. This therapy is “using a modified sample of a patient’s own blood to trick the immune system into fighting cardiac inflammation.”
The company describes some details of this treatment:
Our Celacade™ technology, currently in phase III clinical development for the treatment of chronic heart failure and peripheral arterial disease, is being developed to target the chronic inflammation associated with cardiovascular disease. Our Celacade technology is designed to deliver oxidative stress to a sample of a patient’s own cells during a brief outpatient procedure, which is administered monthly. During the procedure, a small sample of blood is collected into our Celacade single-use disposable cartridge, exposed to controlled oxidative stress using our Celacade medical device technology, and then re-administered to the patient intramuscularly.
Oxidative stress is a factor known to induce cell apoptosis, or programmed cell death. During apoptosis, signalling molecules, including phosphatidylserine (PS), normally present on the inner surface of the cell membrane, become exposed on the cell surface. The PS molecules interact with specific PS receptors on the surface of antigen presenting cells (APCs) of the immune system, including macrophages and dendritic cells. The interaction with macrophages leads to an up-regulation in the production of the anti-inflammatory cytokines IL-10 and TGF-β. Dendritic cells that interact with apoptotic cells remain immature and, in the presence of anti-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-10 and TGF-β, cause the differentiation of some naive T cells to regulatory T cells. These traffic through the tissues and inhibit inflammatory cells such as T1 cells by a process that includes cell-cell interaction and the production of anti-inflammatory cytokines by the regulatory T cells. The end result is a reduction in tissue levels of inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α, IL-6, IFN-γ, and IL-1β, and a down-regulation of chronic inflammation.
More at Vasogen…
