40th Anniversary,
Research Conference
As part of our 40th anniversary celebrations, a conference on the latest research in coeliac disease was held in London at the Royal Society of Arts in London on 3 December. The day provided two parallel programmes including one aimed at the scientific community and another tailored for Members. Over 100 researchers and nearly 140 Members attended. Eminent researchers speaking at the conference included those whose work was funded in part by Coeliac UK.
Professor Bob Anderson presented his exciting work on vaccine development. His work, from the Autoimmunity and Transplantation Division of The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Australia, identified the toxic elements of gluten in turn creating the potential for a vaccine therapy to suppress or prevent gluten toxicity. The research indicates that there are only a few dominant peptides in the gluten protein that trigger the autoimmune response in people with coeliac disease facilitating the creation of a potential vaccine. "We have developed a peptide-based therapeutic vaccine based on the dominant problem T-cell epitopes of gluten. The 'vaccine' has the potential to treat about 80% of people with the disease. In common with traditional desensitization therapy for allergy, peptide-based therapeutic vaccines administered in many small doses over a course of injections could induce immune tolerance not only to the selected gluten fragments but also suppress the toxicity of other toxic gluten components," explained Dr Anderson. He is joint founder and CEO of Nexpep Pty Ltd, the company developing the coeliac vaccine in Australia. Dr Anderson said, "Nexpep is currently raising capital for a clinical trial program for a peptide-based therapeutic vaccine and intends to commence a Phase 1 clinical trial in the first half of 2009."
Further research findings included those presented by Professor David Van Heel who outlined research funded by Coeliac UK in 2007 that identified a new genetic risk factor for coeliac disease and discovered an additional seven gene regions implicated in causing the condition. Of the nine coeliac gene regions now known, four of these are also predisposing factors for Type 1 diabetes. Their research demonstrates the strong overlap between the two conditions while recognising the slightly different immunological responses.
Nina Lewis, recipient of the Coeliac UK Research Training Fellowship, spoke on the prognosis of people with coeliac disease. In particular, her data show that newly-diagnosed people have much lower total cholesterol levels than the general population with the observed reduction greater in men (21%) than in women (9%). Treatment of coeliac disease also has beneficial effects on haematological, biochemical and anthropometric profiles such as weight gain and raised liver enzymes. Some of her new research focuses on the effects of different modes of presentation of coeliac disease on the health-related quality of life as well as an economic evaluation on the impact of introducing a gluten-free diet to people with coeliac disease.
Other researchers included Joe West, Specialist Registrar in gastroenterology in Nottingham, who presented data from the UK GP Research Database suggesting that patients with coeliac disease have only a third of the risk of developing breast cancer compared with the general population.
A selection of the presentations from the day can be found below. We were not granted permission by the authors for all of the presentations to be published.
MEMBERS' PROGRAMME
All in all, the day provided an invaluable opportunity for the scientific community to share findings with each other and Members as well as discuss potential new research.
