Sea anemone venom is showing promise a potential lupus immunotherapy. Photo credit: Michele Kelly, San Blas, Panama.
Sea anemones that grow on the ocean floor are showing promise as a source of treatment for lupus, a painful disease in which a person’s immune system attacks its own healthy, normal cells.
Dr. Anne Stevens, who treats and studies lupus at Seattle Children’s Hospital and Seattle Children’s Research Institute, is presenting results this week from her research on dalazatide, a compound derived from sea anemone venom that she is researching to determine if it could be used as a potential immunotherapy for lupus. The condition affects about 1.5 million Americans, and nearly 90% of those diagnosed are female. Almost all women who get lupus are of childbearing age.
“This could lead to a totally new approach of treating lupus,” Stevens said. “In lupus patients, a particular type of immune cell is overactive. We found that dalazatide can target those overactive effector memory T cells and turn down their activity.”
Stevens is presenting her latest findings at a meeting of the European League Against Rheumatism in London.
Lupus cells quiet down with dalazatide
Normally, a person’s immune system works by producing immune T cells and antibodies that fight germs and infections. But when a person has lupus, the immune system goes into overdrive and can’t tell the difference between the body’s normal, healthy cells and germs that cause infection. The immune cells that are to blame: effector memory T cells, which direct the attack on the body’s healthy cells with the same swiftness and strength those T cells are supposed to use only against viruses and infections.
Dr. Anne Stevens says dalazatide, a compound derived from sea anemones, may lead to a better lupus treatment.
Stevens’ latest findings show that effector memory T cells from lupus patients can be targeted and blocked with dalazatide. The drug is produced by KPI Therapeutics and Kineta.
Current treatments can reduce some inflammation associated with lupus, but they also suppress normal functions of the immune system and have wide-ranging side effects like weight gain from steroids.
Stevens’ recent research led to two important findings: First, she has confirmed that effector memory T cells from lupus patients express high levels of Kv 1.3, a receptor on those cells that is targetable with dalazatide. Secondly, she has confirmed that dalazatide can block effector memory T cell activity, demonstrating that the drug is effective against those cells.
“Dalazatide could offer a much more targeted treatment approach than current lupus treatments that are very hard on a patient’s body,” Stevens said. “The goal is to create an immunotherapy treatment for lupus, in which we use this compound to regulate a patient’s own T cells.”
Next steps in lupus research
Stevens says now that they have shown the drug’s efficacy in a lab, she will work on designing a clinical trial for patients with lupus. The drug has been tested in a trial to treat adult psoriasis and may have potential as a therapy for other autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, arthritis, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel diseases and asthma.
“My hope is that some day lupus patients can avoid the difficult treatment and side effects they deal with today and instead take a simple injection twice a week with this therapy,” Stevens said.
I am so excited I am almost in tears! I hope this works!
I am having difficulty fighting an infection right now. It’s on going thing, my body has grown a resistance to all the antibiotics, and every time it’s worst. U see I to have lupus. U have anything on the more research ur doing please email me. So I may look in to it I am interested. Thank u.
Please, please hurry, I’ve had no life since I was diagnosed with Lupus. A simple walk in the sun, is only a memory. Please Dr, continue your research. It breaks my heart to see small children with Lupus. I’m 59 years old, I would love to have hope for just a few years of my golden age.
Sign me up. So excited excited!
I wonder how this will effect transplant patients with lupus
If this works, my prayers would be answered. I would love to be part of the study group of you need me. I’m in the 10%…as a guy with Lupus.. life has been very hard. I’ve lost everything.. home, relationships, jobs.. so please keep giving me hope. It’s all I have.
That would be amazing! I would love to take part in the clinical trials.
Where do I sign up?
Thank you Dr. Anne Stevens. Your research and breakthroughs are very exciting and hopeful.
I would very interested in being included in clinical trials. I am third generation with lupus (Great Grandmother, Mom and me). I also have RA, OA, Raynauds, Barrett’s Esophagus and some other conditions.
I would really like to know how to become part of the trials????
Yay! How exciting. Great work.
Thank you for your interest in this research. Each of you who commented should have received an email with additional information about any upcoming clinical trial.
I am 26 year old female and I have been recently diagnosed with Lupus. I am having rashes and I am very fatigued but I am still working and trying to manage my life. I would love to be a part of this trial!
Thanks, Juliana
Please send me info on how to become part if the trial. Thank you so much.
I am 28 years old female and was just diagnosed in December. I feel like everything in my life has changed since receiving the news. I would like to have another baby but my fears of all the possible complications are holding me back. I would love to be a part of this trial if there is the possibility of a some what normal future.