Benaroya Research Institute (BRI) is a Seattle, Washington non-profit organization that conducts medical research on many diseases and immune disorders, including autoimmune disease. It is affiliated with Virginia Mason Health System, and is located on the campus of Virginia Mason Medical Center.
Much of BRI's research aims to understand how immune cells function and why they malfunction to cause disease. BRI researchers study how immune cells contribute to rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and other diseases.
BRI uses translational research and clinical trials to carry its findings from the lab to the clinic, to inform how physicians diagnose and treat disease.
History
BRI was founded in 1956 as the Virginia Mason Research Center. In 1985, Gerald Nepom became BRI's director and established its immunology research program.
In 1999, BRI moved into a new, 100,000 square-foot building at the corner of Seneca and 9th Avenue, in Seattle's First Hill neighborhood. The building was named the Benaroya Research Institute in honor of donations from the Benaroya family.
In the late 1990s, BRI's William Kwok and Nepom developed MHC class II tetramer technology that helps researchers find and study antigen-specific T cells. These tetramers are customized (using different HLA/peptide combinations) for use by researchers to study how the immune system responds to many different diseases and pathogens, including influenza, human papillomavirus, allergies, type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.
In 2016, Jane Buckner took over from Nepom and became BRI's president. Nepom remained at BRI as a researcher and faculty member.
Research
BRI studies immune cells and immunotherapies that reprogram those cells; these therapies could inform treatments and cures for type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases.
BRI's uses its biorepositories of blood and specimens from individuals with autoimmune diseases and other disorders, and from healthy individuals to conduct research. BRI has eight biorepositories that contain samples dating back to the year 2000.
In 2014, BRI was awarded a seven year, $27 million per-year grant to become headquarters of the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN), a clinical research consortium with more than 200 research sites around the world. The ITN investigates how to retrain the immune system to tolerate organ transplants and reduce the effects of allergies, autoimmune diseases and other health issues. The ITN is directed by Nepom.
BRI's Carla Greenbaum is chair of Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet. TrialNet is an international research network that is pursuing new ways to identify, slow the progression of and ultimately prevent type 1 diabetes.
In 2016, BRI received a five-year, $8 million NIH grant to lead a collaboration that studies how the immune system responds to allergens in the lungs, and how those allergens trigger asthma attacks. The collaboration includes researchers from BRI, UW Medicine and Seattle Children's Research Institute. Their work could lead to new therapies for allergies and asthma.
BRI is also studying immunotherapies to treat type 1 diabetes. In 2016, Buckner and her colleagues received $1 million from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to investigate ways to change "attacker" cells into cells that stop disease. The researchers are isolating the cells that mount autoimmune attacks, and then "reprogramming" them by editing their genes.
In 2017, the Helmsley Trust awarded the researchers an additional $2 million to continue testing the edited cells in the lab.
In 2017, BRI's Erik Wambre and his colleagues identified a type of cell, called Th2A, that appears to drive all allergies. This discovery could change the trajectory of allergy research and treatment by informing to therapies that target this common enemy. Th2A cells could also be used as biomarkers, or indicators to show whether a person has an allergy or is responding to therapy.
In 2018, BRI's Emma L. Kuan and Steven F. Ziegler discovered that a protein called thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) helps breast cancer tumors survive and spread. They also showed that blocking this protein in laboratory models significantly inhibited the growth of breast cancer tumors and kept them from spreading. Kuan and Ziegler are investigating if drugs that block TSLP might be effective against breast cancer.