Pranab Kumar Das
University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Title: An enigmatic disease by the name of vitiligo: Autoimmune manifestation
Biography
Biography: Pranab Kumar Das
Abstract
Vitiligo is characterized by complete loss of UV protective pigment producing cells melanocytes. Due to the appearance of white depigmented patches causing ugly look, the disease, though not life threatening, could be psychologically debilitating despite the demonstration of the presence of mild inflammatory infiltrate in the skin paralleling the loss of melanocytes, vitiligo is not an inflammatory dermatoses. Interestingly, however, the disease is often associated with the presence of classical autoimmune diseases in the same patient. Various theories on the etiology of vitiligo are discussed among the experts. Since last decade the autoimmune mechanism is being subscribed by the investigators. Indeed, our own work demonstrated that the loss of melanocytes in some vitiligo patients is caused most likely by melanocyte specific autoreactive T cells and in addition, in some patients auto-antibodies against melanocytes can also be demonstrated. Nevertheless, vitiligo as such is not always perceived as one of the classical autoimmune diseases. However, studying vitiligo as a model autoimmune disease has opened up to develop novel therapeutics for melanoma. Various investigators had been investing much effort during last decade in designing targeted therapeutics with debatable success. This presentation would attempt to summarize and discuss some of the results in literature, including our own and those of the collaborators to have fresher look in this respect.