TNF defined as a therapeutic target for rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases

M Feldmann, RN Maini - Nature medicine, 2003 - nature.com
M Feldmann, RN Maini
Nature medicine, 2003nature.com
As a medical student in the late 1960s in Australia, I realized that we knew very little about
the mechanisms of disease, and I was eager to learn more. In Melbourne, the premier
research institute was the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) of Medical Research, led by
the dynamic Gustav Nossal. I began my PhD studies developing the then novel method of
immune cell culture, under the supervision of Erwin Diener and Gus Nossal. I used this new
approach to investigate mechanisms of immune regulation, with a particular interest in the …
As a medical student in the late 1960s in Australia, I realized that we knew very little about the mechanisms of disease, and I was eager to learn more. In Melbourne, the premier research institute was the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) of Medical Research, led by the dynamic Gustav Nossal. I began my PhD studies developing the then novel method of immune cell culture, under the supervision of Erwin Diener and Gus Nossal. I used this new approach to investigate mechanisms of immune regulation, with a particular interest in the soluble mediators of immunity, which were subsequently characterized and cloned as cytokines. This interest grew during my postdoctoral research at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Immunology Unit. At the time no immune responses had been detected to human cancers, so I thought that an approach to generate them might be learned by studying the pathogenesis of human autoimmune diseases, an interest I had acquired at WEHI. In these diseases, immune responses to self tissues do occur, paradoxically, despite the protective role of the immune system. I started by analyzing thyroid diseases, and from this study in the early 1980s I realized that cytokines were likely to be of major importance in their pathogenesis. To study autoimmune tissue and its molecular mediators at the height of the disease was not possible for thyroiditis, but was possible for rheumatoid arthritis, which can be sampled at the height of the disease. I therefore arranged to meet Ravinder Maini, and a fruitful collaboration ensued (Fig. 1).
nature.com