Guest: Dr. Ciro Piccirillo (a researcher in Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and the Center for the Study of Host Resistance at the MUHC).
July 6, 2009
Inside our bodies we have a very effective army of cells to fight disease. Most of the time these cells are great at identifying and killing pathogens, tumour cells, virus and parasites, but sometimes they mess up.
Simply put, an auto-immune disease is when our body messes up and starts attacking itself. There are more than eighty illnesses caused by autoimmunity and they are often chronic, debilitating, and life-threatening. You may have heard of some of these, such as type 1 diabetes, lupus and multiple sclerosis (MS).
Dr. Ciro Piccirillo – a researcher in Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and the Center for the Study of Host Resistance at the MUHC joins us in the studio this week to explain how auto-immune diseases occur and how we treat them.
Our guest interviews follow the World News In Three Medical Minutes – a regular feature on Health Matters where we summarize the cutting edge medical stories making headlines around the world.
If you have any ideas and suggestions for future shows please contact: healthmatters [at] muhc [dot] mcgill [dot] ca.