AUTOROME - From Immune Responses in Rare Autoimmune Diseases to novel Therapeutic Intervention Strategies-a personalized Medicine approach (Life sciences, genomics and biotechnology for health) (2004-11-01 - 2007-10-31) (»add to infobox)

The European research network, AUTOROME, represents Centers of Excellence in Europe where recent technologies in studying the pathophysiology of humoral and cellular autoimmunity are combined and applied to improve in a personalized manner diagnosis and treatment of rare human autoimmune diseases such as e.g. sclerodermie, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), systemic vasculitis as well as autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome (ALPS). Rare Autoimmune diseases are associated with substantial morbidity and even accelerated mortality in affected persons (children and elderly) Combined efforts will be undertaken to explore the disease potential of pathogenic autoantibodies that might be involved in determining disease-related organ specificities. The AUTOROME project www.autorome.com is divided into 4 workpackages. These are Autoantigen and Autoantibody Mapping (WP1), Isotype-specific peptides (WP2), Dysfunction of the Immune System (WP3), Basic Developmental Mechanisms of the Immune System (WP4), By characterizing epitope-paratope / antigen-antibody interactions diagnostic tools will be generated to study in a personalized manner the pathogenicity of rare autoimmune diseases due to individual autoantibody signatures on a patient to patient basis. Deliverables (D1-D12) include diagnostic kits as well as autoantigen and antibody chips to be developed and validated in clinical settings. By deciphering the B- and T-cell repertoire displayed in autoimmune diseases, novel cellular targets are expected to become available for therapeutic intervention strategies using idiotype-specific peptides as well as therapeutic antibody and siRNA approaches. The feasibility of these approaches will be preclinically assessed in animal models - a prerequisite for conducting clinical trials.

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