Neuroimmunology Research Program
Neuroimmunology Research Program and the UIC Neuroimmunology Biobank Heading link
The goals of the Neuroimmunology Research Program are to discover novel biomarkers and immune cells that mediate disease susceptibility and severity of multiple sclerosis (MS), Neuro-COVID, and other neuroimmunological disorders. One major focus is on historically underrepresented populations in our community. This work is important because African American and Hispanic-Latino patients have not had adequate representation in many prior research studies and are at increased risk of a more severe disease course that is resistant to existing treatments.
The UIC Neuroimmunology Biobank is a central component of this research program. Patient can participate in these studies when they are seen in the Neuroimmunology Clinics. Participation requires informed consent and donation of a blood sample. Samples are stored in the biobank for ongoing and future studies. The long-term goals are to identify individual differences in immune responses and integrate these data with clinical findings relevant to disease phenotype (Fig. 1). Identification of relevant biomarkers is used to personalize care. This research allows us to improve diagnosis and treatment of patients with neuroimmunological disorders.
The UIC Neuroimmunology Biobank is a central component of this research program. Patient can participate in these studies when they are seen in the Neuroimmunology Clinics. Participation requires informed consent and donation of a blood sample. Samples are stored in the biobank for ongoing and future studies. The long-term goals are to identify individual differences in immune responses and integrate these data with clinical findings relevant to disease phenotype (Fig. 1). Identification of relevant biomarkers is used to personalize care. This research allows us to improve diagnosis and treatment of patients with neuroimmunological disorders.
Our Team
Our collaborative research program integrates resources across campuses at the University of Illinois. At UIC, these resources include our neuroimmunology subspecialty clinics at UI Health and the Neuroimmunology Biobank at the UI Health Biorepository. An additional component is the experimental and computational analysis of biorepository samples at the Roy J Carver Biotechnology Center and High-Performance Biological Computing Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus (UIUC). Deep phenotyping that utilizes machine-based learning is performed in consultation with the former Chair of Neurology, Dr. Daniel Hier.