I’ve been thinking of ways to produce long-term localized immunosuppression recently in order to help people with autoimmune diseases. What I’ve dreamed up this time is a device similar to a radioactive “seed” used for prostate cancer, but delivering an inhibitor of cellular signaling (take your pick of interleukins) in direct response to a high concentration of inflammatory cytokines. By carefully controlling the dose in response to environmental conditions, it should be possible to produce a strong localized immunosuppressive response without too much of the drug entering systemic circulation.

Corticosteroids aren’t an option – one challenge is to find something that can be used long-term with few side effects.