Traficet-EN, by ChemoCentryx, was intended for Irritable Bowl Disease, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, but is also being tested on Celiac Disease patients.

http://www.chemocentryx.com/product/phaseII.html

It's great that there are several companies working on products that may help with problems associated with Celiac Disease. The more information we have, the better.

What the heck is traficet-en, and how is it supposed to "treat" celiacs, who might be perfectly healthy unless they ingest a poison--I mean, gluten?

Someone out there, of course, wants to make a drug so we can all eat gluten again. If it becomes availible, I'm sure may folks will choose to use it. What bugs me about this is they have gotten government grants to fund this research. We have so many illness with no good treatment options and we're spending money on something that already has a cure. I wouldn't ever take it.

It's a drug that is a biological modifier of the immune system's response to foreign crap.


quote "Our lead product candidate, Traficet- EN™, (CCX282) targeting the CCR9 chemokine receptor, ..... "


from Wikipedia:
Chemokines are a family of small cytokines, or proteins secreted by cells. The proteins are classified that way by their small size and the presence of 4 cysteine residues . Their name is from the ability to induce directed chemotaxis in nearby responsive cells.... some chemokines are considered pro inflammatory and can be induced during an infection (or an "invasion" ) during an immune response to promote (send) certain cells to the site of an infection (or "invasion", like when gluten hits the cells of the intestines and starts a chain reaction.

... these proteins exert their biological effects by interacting with transmembrane receptors found on cell surfaces called ..... chemokine receptors.

The major role of chemokines is to guide the migration of cells... some control cells .... during the processes of "immune surveillance..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemokine

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therefore if one blocks the action of the chemokine receptor, the chemokine cytokine proteins can try sending the messenger to "attack" but there is nothing there to plug in to.

hence it would mess with your immune system response to the "foreign invader," i. e. gluten, in theory.


And I'm sure they could come up with a prescription price for this that is less than what you spend on your gluten free healthier food, and I'm also sure it would work perfectly and have little or no side effects, just like all the other biological modifier drugs...

please don't take the last paragragh seriously.

Sounds too much like a steroid for me to feel comfortable! Just what we need, something to mess with our immune systems.