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Garvan Institute

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Grey

 

Our laboratory is interested in gene therapy and autoimmunity. That is, we investigate the immune system’s attack on the body’s tissues as it occurs during the rejection of organ grafts and in autoimmune disorders like type I diabetes where the insulin-producing beta cells are destroyed. Approaches include examining factors that regulate the immune attack on our own cells and investigating the molecular changes that occur in the tissue being attacked in the hope of, one day, being able to genetically engineer tissues that could withstand the assault. This strategy would alleviate the need for the toxic immunosuppressive drugs currently required to promote successful organ transplantation and, in the case of type 1 diabetes, enable creation of a ‘death-defying’ beta cell as a novel cure.


Staff


eliana_marino90.jpgPhD Student
Eliana Marino
Stacey WaltersResearch Assistant
Stacey Walters
anita_weinberg90.JPGResearch Assistant
Anita Weinberg
jeanette_villanuevaPhD Student
Jeanette Villanueva

bernice_tan90.jpgPhD Student
Bernice Tan









News

 

Potential preventative therapy for Type 1 diabetes

MEDIA RELEASE: 29 Apr 2009
Immunology researchers at Garvan believe they may have found a preventative therapy for Type 1 diabetes, by making the body's killer immune cells tolerate the insulin-producing cells they would normally attack and destroy, prior to disease onset.
 
 

Major breakthrough in transplantation immunity

MEDIA RELEASE: 06 Apr 2009
Garvan scientists have made a discovery that may one day remove the need for a lifetime of toxic immunosuppressive drugs after organ transplants. They have successfully tested a method, in experimental mice, of adjusting the immune system for just long enough to receive a tissue transplant and accept it as ‘self’.
 
 

Creating indestructible insulin-producing cells

MEDIA RELEASE: 14 Nov 2007
Dr Shane Grey, head of Garvan's Gene Therapy and Autoimmunity Group, has received $350,000 from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, as part of their Australian Islet Transplantation Program. The grant will help him genetically modify cells enabling them to defy the body's attempts to reject or kill them after transplant.
 
 

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