The Office of Research Education at the CU School of Medicine continues its partnership with the Tattered Cover Book Store on Wednesday, January 28th, 2026, with a presentation entitled "From Rare Diseases to Common Pathways: Decoding Immune Mechanisms of Rare Disease Illuminates Shared Biological Concepts that Guide Precision Medicine in Common Disorders."
Mohammad Mansoor "Mansoor" (PhD candidate) and Elena Hsieh, MD, (Associate Professor, Department of Immunology and Microbiology), who are both members of the Immunology PhD Program, will talk about how inborn errors of immunity (IEI) are a group of disorders caused by changes in genes that control how the immune system develops and functions.
Although individually rare, these disorders act as powerful “natural experiments,” revealing what specific immune genes and pathways are required to keep us healthy. One of the most widely recognized examples is David Vetter also called the “boy in the bubble” who had severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) which made him vulnerable to infection. Studying SCID and related immune disorders has taught us how immune cells, such as T cells and B cells, are formed, trained, and regulated, and what happens when these processes fail.
How can we leverage the study of these rare cases to transform and reshape how we diagnose and treat diseases that affect millions of people? In this chat, we will explore how insights from rare immune diseases have uncovered shared biological pathways that are also disrupted in common conditions, including autoimmunity, chronic inflammation, and immune-mediated disorders. These discoveries have directly informed the development of targeted therapies and moved the field closer to the ultimate goal of selecting the right treatment, at the right time, for the right patient based on their underlying immune biology.
