Secret wedding: Jude Law marries Phillipa Coan in London
Jude Law is officially a married man! The 46-year-old actor tied the knot with his girlfriend Phillipa Coan. According to English newspaper The Sun, the secret wedding took place on Tuesday, April 30, at the Old Marylebone Town Hall in London.
Many chronic diseases arise from misguided immune reactions. In a recent study, an international research team at the Institute for Cardiovascular Prevention at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) examined the role of immune defense cells, also called neutrophils. Scientists have found that these special cells cause fatal tissue damage and increase the risk of a heart attack or stroke. At the same time, the researchers have developed a synthetic peptide that can stop this fatal process.
Atherosclerosis is characterized by the accumulation of plaque on the inner wall of blood vessels. In response, immune cells migrate through the bloodstream to sites of plaque formation. They penetrate the underlying tissue, releasing compounds that attract even more immune cells untilthe inflammatory reaction becomes chronic at some pointbecomes. Once the plaque breaks away from the vessel wall, it can restrict blood flow and trigger a heart attack or stroke.
Neutrophils may play a particularly damaging role in destabilizing plaques. They bind to the muscle cells that lie beneath the vessel wall. When these are activated, they release histones that are highly charged and cytotoxic. Free histones kill the neighboring cells – in atherosclerosis these are the smooth muscle cells,” says study leader Oliver Söhnlein. “The loss of these cells in turn destabilizes the plaques because the plaques are no longer supported by the underlying smooth muscle cells,” he continued.
Using the technique of “molecular modeling,” Söhnlein and his team have developed a synthetic peptide that binds to free histones and neutralizes their toxic effects. “Thanks to its mode of action, the new active ingredient should be used in other diseases associated withchronic inflammation such as arthritisand chronic intestinal inflammation have the same effect,” says Söhnlein. A patent application has already been filed.
