Controlling the immune system: from autoimmunity to chronic inflammation

Increasingly, researchers understand that harmful inflammation happens not just in classic autoimmune diseases, where the immune system attacks the body’s own cells inappropriately, but also in diseases that haven’t traditionally been thought of as driven by the immune system — including very common conditions such as cardiovascular disease1 and dementia.

These insights have emerged as scientists worldwide have deepened their knowledge of the immune system’s many intricacies.

Unlocking that understanding will be critical for developing new treatments. For example, by discovering which immune cells and inflammatory messaging molecules called cytokines are linked to specific diseases or even to all-cause mortality, it becomes clearer which areas of the immune system to target to prevent or lessen disease burden. Scientists at Roche are developing new ways to tune the immune system: not only turning the helpful components up, but finding ways to turn the overactive parts down. Although it is early days, these insights are possible because of the wealth of immune system data collected by Roche in the lab and in clinical trials through its long-term focus on immunology.