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EVOQ Therapeutics is developing immunotherapies focused on improving the lives of individuals fighting autoimmune diseases.

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There are more than 100 chronic autoimmune diseases - many severely debilitating, and some life-threatening. According to the National Institutes of Health, up to 23.5 million Americans (over 7% of the population) suffer from autoimmune disease, and the prevalence is rising.

 

Autoimmune disease occurs when the body’s central immune tolerance system fails - resulting in T and B cell-mediated destruction of self-tissues. This immune system failure is responsible for many devastating diseases including – Type 1 Diabetes, Celiac disease, Multiple sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Primary Biliary Cholangitis, and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus to name a few...

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EVOQ’s technology unleashes and restores the body’s natural immune tolerance pathways.
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Harnessing the human immune system to treat autoimmune disease is extremely challenging. Evoking an appropriate immune response requires a complex set of interactions between the innate and adaptive immune systems.

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Fortunately, there is a central figure responsible for orchestrating appropriate immune responses.

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That central figure is the dendritic cell (DC). Also known as a “professional” antigen-presenting cells (APCs), dendritic cells specialize in priming different types of effector T cells and directing the immune system either toward a state of self-tolerance or toward the initiation of protective immune activation.

 
Compared to other APCs, such as B cells and macrophages, dendritic cells are considered to be the most versatile and efficient APCs because of their unique ability to control both immune tolerance and cell-mediated immune activation. They accomplish this using a mix of signals in the form of cell surface receptors and cytokines.