A healthy immune system targets pathogens while sparing the body’s own tissues. In autoimmune disease such as multiple sclerosis, the immune system misidentifies the body’s own cells, causing a self-perpetuating cycle of immune cell recruitment and inflammation. Healthy tissues come under attack, causing disease.

To date, clinicians have relied upon immune suppressant therapies that risk serious side-effects. COUR’s breakthrough nanoparticle platform harnesses the immune system’s own learning power to induce tolerance to specific problematic antigens, while preserving all immune functionality.

Upon infusion, COUR nanoparticles bind to immune cells called monocytes. The particles surface is functionalized to enhance uptake, ensuring optimal targeted delivery. These cells then travel to the spleen and liver, where they undergo apoptosis.

There, the disease-specific antigens encapsulated within the particles are released. The resulting debris is consumed by antigen presenting cells, which present the disease-specific antigens along with negative co-stimulating factors to the adaptive immune system. Adaptive immune T-cells interact with the antigen-presenting cells, and in the absence of inflammatory signals they “perceive” the antigen as self. These T-cells respond by undergoing deletion or anergy or by inducing a T regulatory response. T regulatory cells then migrate to sites of disease, where they continually downregulate the immune response in the presence of the disease specific antigen.

By harnessing the immune system’s built-in learning and regulatory pathways, COUR nanoparticle technology can reprogram the immune system – providing clinicians with a breakthrough approach to treating autoimmune disease.