Newswise — SAN RAFAEL, CA – March 11, 2011 – The National Alopecia Areata Foundation (NAAF) is focusing on its mission of research and launching a new Treatment Development Program. With this new program, NAAF is pleased to announce the University of Colorado Denver, under the direction of George Eisenbarth, MD, has been selected to conduct the initial experiments on autoantibodies in alopecia areata. Dr. Eisenbarth has established a National Institutes of Health reference laboratory in Denver to identify antibody specificities in autoimmune disease. David Norris, MD, Chair of the Dermatology Department at the University of Colorado Medical School, will provide alopecia areata immunology and biology support to the study.
The National Alopecia Areata Foundation is very pleased by the partnership and believes there is much to gain from building on this laboratory’s knowledge and applying it to alopecia areata. The University of Colorado Denver laboratory was chosen based on its prior research advancements in the immunology and autoimmunity of Type 1 Diabetes. After a NAAF research summit in August of 2009, it was established that there were shared commonalities between alopecia areata and other autoimmune diseases such as Type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. This was later confirmed by the genetics studies published in Nature in July 2010 by Dr. Angela Christiano of Columbia University.
The Treatment Development Program is an initiative that evolved from two research summits in 2008 and 2009. It is a seven year, two-pronged program with the ultimate goal of finding safe and effective treatments for alopecia areata. One approach will be to partner with corporations and the National Institutes of Health to review effective treatments for other related autoimmune and skin diseases to determine any possibility of efficacy for alopecia areata. The second approach is discovering the immune target of alopecia areata through immunology research in hopes of identifying treatments not currently known or available. This first segment of the program began in 2010 and has a goal of concluding in 2016.
The National Alopecia Areata Foundation (NAAF), headquartered in San Rafael, CA, supports research to find a cure or acceptable treatment for alopecia areata, supports those with the disease, and educates the public about alopecia areata. NAAF is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors and has a prestigious Scientific Advisory Council. Founded in 1981, NAAF is widely regarded as the largest, most influential, and most respected foundation associated with alopecia areata.
To learn more about alopecia areata, or to schedule an interview with a NAAF researcher, please contact the National Alopecia Areata Foundation office at (415) 472-3780 in San Rafael, CA or visit the NAAF website at www.naaf.org.
RSS