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Complement disorders and autoimmune diseases are equally fascinating and challenging for modern medicine. Only about 10% of complement disorders are ever diagnosed correctly and few people will ever hear about these disorders unless they are unfortunate to experience them. Our talks this evening are given by experts who have devoted their careers to understanding and treating complement disorders and autoimmune diseases. Dr's Kevin Marchbank, Edwin Wong and Desa Lilic MD talk us through the inner workings of our immune system, what complement disorders are, why they matter for our kidneys .
Bad Complements and the Kidney
Dr Kevin Marchbank
(Senior Lecturer in Complement Therapeutics)
Complement disorders are equally fascinating and challenging for modern medicine. Dr Marchbank takes you on a tour of our complement system, what it is and why it matters especially to our kidneys.
His personal quest to develop better and cheaper drugs to treat complement diseases provides the perfect backdrop to learning about fascinating diseases, which are currently treated with one of most expensive medicines on the NHS.
His personal quest to develop better and cheaper drugs to treat complement diseases provides the perfect backdrop to learning about fascinating diseases, which are currently treated with one of most expensive medicines on the NHS.
Controlling complement: finding a treatment for aHUS
Dr Edwin Wong
(Consultant Nephrologist and Associate Clinical Lecturer)
In this talk, Dr Edwin Wong describes and incredible 20 year journey that began in Newcastle, to find an effective treatment for the rare disease atypical haemolytic uraemic syndrome. Though the talk Dr Wong introduces the challenges of working with rare diseases and where our knowledge of this disease is taking us next.
When the immune system goes wrong: Why research into inborn errors of immunity is important
Desa Lilic MD, MSc, DSc/PhD, FRCPath
(Consultant Clinical Immunologist & Head of Service, Immunology Department, University Hospital of North Durham)
My talk will briefly outline what the immune system does (protection against pathogens and maintenance of self-tolerance) and how it does it (innate and adaptive immunity, immune cells and antibodies). Inborn errors / genetic flaws of the immune system aka Primary Immune Deficiencies (PIDs) predispose not only to severe infections with a broad spectrum or selective susceptibilities to specific bugs (bacteria, viruses, fungi), but also to a range of autoinflammatory and/or autoimmune conditions such as Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) often leading to serious kidney disease.
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