Wide Open

Tonight I found a double-helping of tasty news: "Regulatory T-lymphocytes mediate amyotrophic lateral sclerosis progression and survival" (PDF). So what's the big deal? Let me explain in two parts - the scientific then the soapbox.

It has been known for a while that Regulatory T-Cells (Tregs) were helpful in moderating the damage noted in ALS. In fact, one of the authors on this paper, Dr. Stanley Appel, did pioneering work in determining this. What makes this paper exciting is that numbers of Tregs and levels of their associated regulator protein FOXP3 were positively linked to rate of progression. This not only points directly to powerful therapeutic targets but also can be used to separate patient populations between fast and slow progression for more accurate (and shorter) clinical trials, all from a simple blood analysis at diagnosis.

The other thing I found very encouraging about this paper was how it was published. Part of the funding for the research came from NIH. Therefore it would be assumed to be taxpayer-funded and therefore public domain. I have seen open articles published by the paywalled giant Elsevier in such circumstances. However, the chosen journal was an expressly Open Access journal published by the European Molecular Biology Organization called EMBO Molecular Medicine. This is a paper published by top researchers who deliberately chose an Open Access journal. This behavior deserves commendation and support. Research needs to be shared, especially where catastrophic disease is concerned.