Mainz Uni­ver­sity

Mainz Uni­ver­sity Med­ical Centre, Focus on Endo­crino­logy and Meta­bolic Diseases
Autoim­mune Endo­crino­logy” Research Group (Prof. Dr. George Kahaly)

 

jgu-mainz

Together we want to improve the ther­apy of autoim­mune dis­eases: the research teams of the renowned endo­crino­lo­gist Pro­fessor George J. Kahaly from the Uni­ver­sity Med­ical Centre Mainz and research­ers from ISAR Bioscience. Our main focus is on the wide­spread Graves’ dis­ease. In this dis­ease, the immune sys­tem pro­duces anti­bod­ies against the patient’s own thyroid gland, which stim­u­lates it to pro­duce excess­ive amounts of its hor­mones, and to increase in size. Symp­toms can also occur out­side the thyroid gland, such as hor­mone-related dis­ease of the eye cav­ity (endo­crine orbit­o­pathy). Many cases of hyper­thyroid­ism can­not be con­trolled with med­ic­a­tion alone: Often the dis­eased tis­sue must be des­troyed by radioiod­ine ther­apy or sur­gic­ally removed. There is a great need for innov­at­ive, effect­ive and at the same time gentle forms of treat­ment. Finally, Dr. Kahaly is mem­ber of the Pub­lic­a­tion Core Com­mit­tee of the Amer­ican Endo­crine Society.

Our two research teams have already developed cor­res­pond­ing approaches. Within the frame­work of this cooper­a­tion, we are now con­cen­trat­ing on cer­tain immune cells, the T and B lymph­o­cytes. We invest­ig­ate their suit­ab­il­ity as start­ing points for innov­at­ive ther­apies using mam­malian dis­ease mod­els. We bene­fit from the novel Bio-Assays for the detec­tion of Graves’ dis­ease and the extens­ive exper­i­ence with clin­ical stud­ies in this field, which the endo­crino­lo­gists from the Uni­ver­sity Med­ical Centre Mainz, Pro­fessor George Kahaly and Dr. Tanja Diana, bring to the cooper­a­tion with ISAR Bioscience.

Pro­fessor George Kahaly M.D., Ph.D., is a senior phys­i­cian at the Depart­ment of Endo­crino­logy and Meta­bolic Dis­eases at the I. Med­ical Clinic and Poly­clinic of the Uni­ver­sity of Mainz. He dir­ects the Endo­crine and Thyroid Autoim­munity Pro­gram in the Endo­crino­logy Out­pa­tient Clinic, is Chair of the ORPHAN Expert Centre for Graves’ Orbit­o­pathy and Autoim­mune Poly­en­do­crino­pathy and dir­ects the Molecu­lar Thyroid Research Labor­at­ory. George Kahaly has authored about 330 ori­ginal art­icles and reviews. He has received numer­ous awards for his research, includ­ing the Amer­ican Asso­ci­ation of Clin­ical Endo­crino­lo­gists / Amer­ican Col­lege of Endo­crino­logy (AACE/ACE) Endo­crino­logy Award and the Brit­ish Thyroid Asso­ci­ation Medal (George Mur­ray Award). Kahaly is co-editor of major journ­als and co-organ­iser of inter­na­tional con­gresses. He serves as a board mem­ber of the European Group of Graves’ Orbit­o­pathy (EUGOGO) and has been act­ive in vari­ous com­mit­tees of the Amer­ican Thyroid Asso­ci­ation for many years.

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