St. Vincent's University Hospital

GRI Bio Announces Publication of Comprehensive Invariant NKT (iNKT) Cell Review in Frontiers in Immunology Demonstrating a Key Role of Type 1 iNKT Cells in Modulating Various Fibrotic Conditions

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, October 5, 2023
Consultant, Injury, HIV disease progression rates, Frontiers, Biomarker, NKT, Doctor of Philosophy, Osteopontin, Natural killer T cell, School, Inflammation, Manuscript, IPF, Alcoholic hepatitis, Saint Vincent, Disease, NASH, GRI, Fibroblast, Teaching hospital, IL-6, Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, Rheumatoid arthritis, Movement, Liver function tests, St. Vincent's University Hospital, Oxygen, LA, Lupus nephritis, Lupus, Medical school, Associate, Multiple sclerosis, University College Dublin, Fibrosis, Tissue, NK, Macrophage, Human, Cytokine, Chemokine, Patient, Neutrophil, Vaccine, Pharmaceutical industry, Medicine

LA JOLLA, CA, Oct. 05, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GRI Bio, Inc. (NASDAQ: GRI) (“GRI Bio” or the “Company”), a biotechnology company advancing an innovative pipeline of Natural Killer T (“NKT”) cell modulators for the treatment of inflammatory, fibrotic and autoimmune diseases, today announced the publication of an article that reviews data in both experimental models and in humans that suggest a key role of type 1 invariant NKT (iNKT) cell activation in the progression of inflammatory cascades leading to recruitment of neutrophils and activation of the inflammasome, macrophages, fibroblasts, and, ultimately, fibrosis. The manuscript titled, “Type 1 invariant natural killer T cells in chronic inflammation and tissue fibrosis,” has been published in Frontiers in Immunology.1

Key Points: 
  • iNKT are pro-inflammatory effector T cells that accumulate in many models of chronic fibrotic diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), lupus nephritis and NASH.
  • I am encouraged by the emerging experimental evidence that iNKT cells play an important role in chronic inflammation and fibrosis.
  • iNKT cells are involved in the regulation of all three, type 1, type 2 and type 3 cytokine associated fibrotic pathways.
  • GRI Bio’s lead program, GRI-0621 is a small molecule RAR-βɣ dual agonist that inhibits the activity of human type 1, iNKT cells.