30. Dynamics of Autoimmune Diseases

Autoimmune diseases are due to the immune response of the human body, which reacts against substances or tissues of the body. Lupus is a systemic autoimmune disease, or autoimmune connective tissue disease, affecting any part of the human body. In this chapter we study the dynamics of autoimmune diseases using a control systems approach. We investigate how the drug scheduling framework previously developed by the authors can control the autoimmune phenomenon. The main purpose of this work is to demonstrate how available tools are capable of treating the autoimmune disease. We employ drug therapy as a control input and explore how it can contribute to treat autoimmune diseases. In particular, we study a model describing an autoimmune disease with a control input given by a lupus treatment drug, belimumab. We conduct additional modeling work since the models in the literature do not capture the explicit relation between autoimmunity and the drug therapy by belimumab. We also examine which part of the model can be controlled via manipulation of drug dosage and derive a control method with which to treat autoimmune inflammation related to autoreactive B cells.

In Sect. 30.1 we give a brief introduction to lupus, because we study a model in which the control input is a newly developed and approved lupus treatment drug. In Sect. 30.2 we recall the model in [30.1] and conduct additional modeling work, since the current models do not capture the explicit relation between drug therapy and autoimmunity. We also examine which part of the model could be used as a control input and derive a control method. Section 30.3 describes the proposed control ideas and develops the control procedure for the model, which can treat autoimmune inflammation by means of controlling autoreactive B cells. Finally, we discuss future work and present further remarks in Sect. 30.4.