Autoimmune Disease and Allergies
Autoimmune diseases and allergies are an increasingly common and often devastating phenomenon in the Western world. It is estimated that over 23 million people suffer from autoimmune diseases, and more than 50 million people suffer from allergies in the United States alone .
Many treatments for both autoimmune disease and allergies have been attempted with varying degrees of success, but a single treatment modality for immune disorders has yet to be implemented. To date, there are still many autoimmune diseases lacking treatment.
Our Solution
We intend to design a preventative treatment for allergies and autoimmune disease by utilizing the natural system of Central Tolerance. Central Tolerance is one of the primary mechanisms through which the immune system becomes tolerant to “self”. In this mechanism, exposure of developing lymphocytes to autoantigen leads to their deletion, thus precluding the possibility of an immune response to self-antigen. Through genetic engineering and subsequent transfusion of hematopoietic stem cells we hope to induce widespread and continuous immune tolerance towards specific antigens that are known causes of allergic and autoimmune disease. To this end, we are designing a plasmid based platform that will allow inducible expression and display of target antigens on the membrane of hematopoietic stem cells, and their differentiated lineages. While the specific antigens we are working with represent only a fraction of the existing diseases and allergies, they serve as proof of concept for a modular and efficacious system capable of preventing many more autoimmune and allergic diseases.

Before you start:

Please read the following pages:

Styling your wiki

You may style this page as you like or you can simply leave the style as it is. You can easily keep the styling and edit the content of these default wiki pages with your project information and completely fulfill the requirement to document your project.

While you may not win Best Wiki with this styling, your team is still eligible for all other awards. This default wiki meets the requirements, it improves navigability and ease of use for visitors, and you should not feel it is necessary to style beyond what has been provided.

Wiki template information

We have created these wiki template pages to help you get started and to help you think about how your team will be evaluated. You can find a list of all the pages tied to awards here at the Pages for awards link. You must edit these pages to be evaluated for medals and awards, but ultimately the design, layout, style and all other elements of your team wiki is up to you!

Editing your wiki

On this page you can document your project, introduce your team members, document your progress and share your iGEM experience with the rest of the world!

Use WikiTools - Edit in the black menu bar to edit this page

Tips

This wiki will be your team’s first interaction with the rest of the world, so here are a few tips to help you get started:

State your accomplishments! Tell people what you have achieved from the start.
Be clear about what you are doing and how you plan to do this.
You have a global audience! Consider the different backgrounds that your users come from.
Make sure information is easy to find; nothing should be more than 3 clicks away.
Avoid using very small fonts and low contrast colors; information should be easy to read.
Start documenting your project as early as possible; don’t leave anything to the last minute before the Wiki Freeze. For a complete list of deadlines visit the iGEM 2017 calendar
Have lots of fun!

Inspiration

You can also view other team wikis for inspiration! Here are some examples:

Uploading pictures and files

You can upload your pictures and files to the iGEM 2017 server. Remember to keep all your pictures and files within your team's namespace or at least include your team's name in the file name.
When you upload, set the "Destination Filename" to
T--YourOfficialTeamName--NameOfFile.jpg. (If you don't do this, someone else might upload a different file with the same "Destination Filename", and your file would be erased!)

UPLOAD FILES

Team:TECHNION-ISRAEL

TECHNION-ISRAEL