ALL WELCOME
Herman Waldmann’s group works on harnessing mechanisms of immunological tolerance for therapeutic purposes. Unwanted immune responses have a major impact on human health and wealth. Their management has required long-term immunosuppressive drugs which penalise the whole immune system. The big challenge has been to understand how the individual is naturally tolerant to self, and to exploit this knowledge for treatments better targeted to the relevant antigens. The group is undertaking basic research into the mechanisms of immune tolerance and how these can be harnessed, using monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and other modern biotherapeutics, to develop clinical treatments for human diseases that involve disregulation or inappropriate reactions of the immune system such as in autoimmunity or transplant rejection.