Grifols Announces Winner of the 2018 SPIN Award for Immunoglobulin Research in Neurology at the 2018 Peripheral Nerve Society Annual Meeting

Baltimore, Maryland, USA, July 24, 2018 - For the tenth consecutive year, Grifols presented the SPIN (Scientific Progress – Immunoglobulins in Neurology) Award as a part of the Grifols Scientific Awards program, which is committed to promoting scientific research.

The SPIN Award Program supports the development and testing of innovative ideas and hypotheses in the field of immunoglobulin research in neurology. It was launched in 2008 under its former name, eSPIN (European Scientific Progress – Immunoglobulins in Neurology). Since 2015, the scope of the SPIN Awards has been extended and now invites applications from around the globe.

The winner of the 2018 SPIN Award is Miriam Fichtner from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, USA.

Her project, "IVIg influence on pathogenic B cells in myasthenia gravis", will investigate how intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIg) affect the immunopathology of the neuromuscular autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis.

The investigation of acetylcholine receptor (AChR) antibodies and of AChR antibody producing B cells before and after IVIg administration could provide significant information on the mechanisms underlying the response to treatment and could be relevant to other antibody-mediated diseases. The simplicity and elegance of the proposed study design and methodology, and the relevance of the expected insights into the mode of action of IVIg convinced the international jury to award Miriam Fichtner with a research grant for funding of the proposed project for one year.