ALBANY, N.Y., January 10, 2008— An Albany Medical College research team has demonstrated that a molecule they discovered several years ago named BCL11B does, in fact, play a major role in the immune system’s battle against invading pathogens and tumors.

In a series of experiments, the team, headed by Dorina Avram, Ph.D., associate professor in the Center for Cell Biology and Cancer Research at the Albany Medical College, demonstrated that the molecule plays an important role in helping the body form T lymphocytes, the lead cellular “warriors” in the immune system. In fact, when BCL11B was removed from developing cells, significantly fewer T lymphocytes developed and, even more significantly, the T lymphocytes that did develop were useless because they no longer had the ability to distinguish between the body’s own cells and the invading pathogens or tumors.

The research is published in a paper titled “BCL11B is Required for Positive Selection and Survival of Double Positive Thymoctyes” in a recent issue of the prestigious Journal of Experimental Medicine.

It is hoped that achieving a better understanding of BCL11B and other transcription factors—molecules that are critical to the development and function of the immune system—will ultimately lead to interventions for more adequate immune responses and better treatments of diseases of the immune system such as celiac disease, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, and even cancers. Dr. Avram’s team’s discovery provides a critical link to understanding how the immune system recognizes which cells to tolerate and which to attack.