Immune fingerprint

MOST auto-immune diseases are easy to diagnose but hard to treat.

A paper published in Science proposes using people’s unique immune cell “fingerprint” to rapidly identify which treatments will work for their auto-immune disease.

“We analysed the genomic profile of over one million cells from 1000 people to identify fingerprint linking genetic markers to diseases,” said Professor Joseph Powell, of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. The discovery could help individuals find tailored treatments.