Benedicte Lie

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Immunogenetics of autoimmune diseases

Our main research focus is to identify genetic variants which predispose to autoimmune diseases. Autoimmune diseases affect about 5% of the population, and result from an attack of the patient’s own immune systems to cells in various tissues. Autoimmune diseases are caused by a combination of genetic and environmental risk factors, and it is clear that some genetic risk factors are shared between different autoimmune diseases. Because of the common immunological and genetic background, we obtain synergy in our research efforts by combining the studies of several autoimmune diseases in the same research environment. The diseases we mainly focus on are juvenile idiopathic arthritis, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, primary sclerosing cholangitis, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and type 1 diabetes.