Normally, our immune system doesn't mount immune response against our self. In other word, the immune system is tolerant to the self antigen, although it has the potential to do so. However, under certain disease condition, this tolerance state could be broken, and that is how autoimmune disease could occur. Despite the advance of modern medicine, the incident of autoimmune disease has been continuously increasing over past three decades, and this disease now ranks the third highest in developed countries. Immune modulation has been shown promising in treating autoimmune disease. In the lab that I am currently working, a technique has been developed to induce antigen specific tolerance by using an epitope IgG fusion protein delivered by retrovirus vector. By using this technology for tolerance induction, significant clinical efficacy has been achieved in several experimental autoimmune models, including uveitis, diabetes, EAE with MBP for multiple sclerosis. Right now I am focused on using gutless adenovirus vector to deliver the epitope IgG fusion protein, and test the efficacy in a human type I disease mouse model.

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5. Zhang AH, Gao S, Fan JL, Huang W, Zhao TQ, Liu G. 2004. Increased HDL cholesterol levels and biliary cholesterol excretion in hamsters by LCAT overexpression. FEBS Lett. 570: 25-29, 2004.
6. Zhang AH, Liu G. Determination of lipoprotein lipase activity using radioactive substrate emulsion and its application. Chin. J. Arterioscler. 11: 573-576, 2003.
7. Liu YJ, Liu RY, Zhang AH. The study of HLA-DR4 subtype polymorphism in Rheumatoid arthritis patients in Guizhou Han ethnic group. Chin. J. Rheumatol. 6: 447-448, 2002.
8. Zhang AH, Liu RY. Activation of Th cell subsets and detection of herpesvirus DNA in rheumatoid arthritis patients. Chin. J. Rheumatol. 6: 183-185, 2002