MICA: Targeting of CD1a for treatment of inflammatory skin disease

皮肤炎症非常常见，影响20-30%的英国人口。异位性皮炎是最常见的，并可与哮喘，花粉热和食物过敏。目前的治疗方法是抑制性的，而不是治愈性的，并且可能带来严重的副作用风险。对于湿疹和其他类型的皮肤炎症，包括牛皮癣，仍然存在对更好和更安全的治疗的主要需求。我们发现了一种以前未知的皮肤炎症发生机制，我们已经证明这与湿疹和其他皮肤病有关。新发现的“CD 1a”通路主要与皮肤相关，这表明其他地方的副作用风险很小。我们现在希望进一步了解这些知识，以开发可用于治疗皮肤病的新药。MRC/UCB赠款将使我们能够确定这些潜在的治疗候选人，我们在牛津拥有所有必要的设施和专业知识，以了解其中哪些最适合进行临床试验。总的来说，通过了解皮肤病是如何发生的，我们已经能够打开潜在的新治疗方法的大门，我们现在将开发这些方法以造福患者。

Inflammation of the skin is very common, affecting 20-30% of the UK population. Eczema (atopic dermatitis) is amongst the most common, and can associate with asthma, hay-fever and food allergy. Current treatments are suppressive rather than curative, and can carry significant risk of side-effects. There remains a major need for better and safer treatments for eczema and other types of inflammation of the skin, including psoriasis. We have discovered a previously unknown mechanism for skin inflammation to occur, which we have shown is relevant to eczema and other skin conditions. The newly discovered "CD1a" pathway is predominantly relevant to the skin, suggesting that risk of side-effects elsewhere would be minimal. We now wish to progress this knowledge to develop new medicines which can be used to treat skin disease. The MRC/UCB grant award would allow us to identify such potential treatment candidates, and we have all the required facilities and know-how in Oxford to understand which of these would be best to take forward to clinical trials. Overall, by understanding how skin diseases occur, we have been able to open the door to potential new treatments, and we now will develop these towards patient benefit.