Etude du Dr Spritz

[Admin]

With help from thousands of vitiligo patients from VSI and other vitiligo patient support groups, and dermatologists around the world, our genetic studies of vitiligo have led to real breakthroughs in our understanding of vitiligo pathogenesis. It is now clear that vitiligo is an autoimmune disease. We've now identified more than 35 genes involved in different combinations in different people, and we now have the outlines of the biological pathways those genes represent, most having to to with immune regulation and the pigment cell. Many of the immune genes are also involved in the other autoimmune diseases that occur frequently in vitiligo patients and their close relatives, explaining that long-recognized epidemiologic association. Neverthless, our picture of vitiligo still remains like a jigsaw puzzle with many pieces missing.

What are the next steps? The U.S. National Institutes of Health had funded us to carry out additional genetic studies, both to identify additional genes and find those missing pieces, and to better understand how the genes we already know about fit together. To accomplish those goals, we need to roughly DOUBLE the size of our studies in Caucasians. To do that, we need your help. If you are a Caucasian vitiligo patient living in the USA or Canada and you have not yet participated and want to help cure vitiligo, please participate now. You can get the study entry questionnaire HERE:

CLICK HERE FOR QUESTIONNAIRE

(you must save this to your local computer, fill it out, save it again, and return via mail or email to richard.spritz@ucdenver.edu). YOU MUST PROVIDE FULL CONTACT INFORMATION, INCLUDING NAME, EMAIL, MAILING ADDRESS, AND TELEPHONE NUMBER. IF WE CANNOT CONTACT YOU, YOUR QUESTIONNAIRE IS USELESS.

Please, just one questionnaire per family; if you send in a questionnaire, please do not ask others in your family to send in additional questionnaires, and do not send in a questionnaire if you participated in the past (unless you never heard back from us, in which case please email me and I will check into what happened).

DO NOT SEND IN QUESTIONNAIRE IF YOU ARE NOT LOCATED IN THE USA OR CANADA.

Finally, this study involves many thousands of participants. We cannot provide individual study participants with personalized reports of data, study progress, genetic risk, advice regarding treatment, or other medical advice.

Thanks again to all of you for your help and participation, and to VSI as an organization. This is your research; only you can make it happen--we cannot do it without you!

Sincerely,

Richard A. Spritz, MD
Professor and Director
Human Medical Genetics and Genomics Program
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Aurora, CO 80045 USA

E-mail: richard.spritz@ucdenver.edu

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voici les dernières nouvelles concernant l'étude du Dr Spritz :

November 5, 2013

With help from thousands of vitiligo patients who have already participated in our research, our genetic studies of vitiligo have led to real breakthroughs in our understanding of vitiligo. It is now clear that vitiligo is an autoimmune disease, and we've identified more than 35 genes that contribute to causing vitiligo in different people. As the result, we now know the general outlines of vitiligo pathogenesis, understand its relationship to other autoimmune diseases, and have discovered clues to new approaches to vitiligo treatment. Nevertheless, our picture of vitiligo is still incomplete, like a jigsaw puzzle with many pieces missing.

What are the next steps? Because our research has been so successful, even in this time of federal budget-cutting, the U.S. National Institutes of Health has given priority to our vitiligo research, funding additional genetic studies to identify additional genes and and to better understand how the genes we already know about fit together. To accomplish those goals, we need to roughly DOUBLE the size of our studies in Caucasians. The first stage of these new studies is already in progress, and we are waiting for new data to come this winter.

We need YOU to take part in the second stage of these new studies. If you are a Caucasian vitiligo patient living in the USA or Canada and you have not yet participated and want to help cure vitiligo, please participate now. You can get the study entry questionnaire HERE: