"The big take-home message here is that the initial injury is related to the resolution of inflammation," said Charles Serhan (above, front). His colleagues are (l to r) Bruce Levy, Karsten Gronert, and Clary Clish. Below, the quelling of inflammation is the result of a specific sequence of events set in motion at the beginning of an inflammatory attack. To investigate the sequence, Serhan and his colleagues created inflammation in a small air pouch on the back of a mouse. Photo by Graham Ramsay |
Inflammatory villain turns do-gooderFindings suggest new approach to taming inflammationAugust 10, 2001Many drugs try to tame inflammation by inhibiting molecular events occurring at the beginning of the body's own immune response. But that may thwart the body's attempt to heal. A team of Harvard Medical School researchers says a better approach may be to enhance the activity of natural compounds that work to resolve an inflammation. A research team headed by Charles Serhan, Harvard Medical School professor of anesthesia at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Bruce Levy, assistant professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, discovered that a natural substance, prostaglandin E2, thought to incite inflammation, is actually doing the opposite — setting the stage for resolving inflammation. That is just one of several plot twists offered by the team's new scenario for how inflammation is resolved in the body. To make the prostaglandin, cells must first produce cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) — the very molecule that many anti-inflammatory drugs inhibit. |
