Question: what is the most interesting thing you have learnt

Joanna Giles answered on 20 Nov 2012:

Hi!
That is such a hard question! I think the area that I work on – that is autoimmune diseases – is extremely interesting. When I first read or heard that certain diseases can be caused by your own body attacking its own cells uncontrollably I think I was extremely interested. To think that all the diseases and symptoms are just caused because your very own immune system is over excited is just amazing – it’s very sad and can be so painful and even fatal. An example of an autoimmune disease is muscular sclerosis, when the body attacks the myelin sheath of the nerve cells and disrupts the messages sent between the brain and the body with symptoms like not being able to walk or see properly, meaning the person might need a lot of help doing simple tasks.

I work on Arthritis, and that is also an autoimmune disease, where the cells in the body attack the joints in a healthy person to lead to pain and inflammation.

Hopefully we can get a much better understanding of how these diseases work and try to figure out a way of specifically calming the immune system in patients to try to stop the disease all together 🙂