Scientists in November 2025 said they are testing a new class of treatments for autoimmune diseases that aims to reprogram patients’ dysfunctional immune systems rather than simply suppressing them, a shift that researchers said could transform care for conditions including rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and lupus.
“We’re entering a new era,” Dr. Maximilian Konig, a rheumatologist at Johns Hopkins University who is studying some of the possible new treatments, said. The therapies offer “the chance to control disease in a way we’ve never seen before.”
In autoimmune diseases, the body’s immune cells attack healthy tissue instead of defending against external threats. Today’s treatments work by dampening that immune response — what researchers described as tamping down “the friendly fire” — but they do not correct the underlying dysfunction driving the attack.
As a result, patients face a lifetime of expensive pills, injections or infusions, many of which carry serious side effects, and too often the medications are not sufficient to keep disease activity in check, according to the Associated Press.
The new approaches aim to alter the immune system itself, not merely quiet it. According to researchers, multiple strategies are under development that seek to be both more potent and more precise than current therapies, targeting the specific immune pathways that have gone awry in each condition.
The approach represents a potential departure from decades of autoimmune treatment built primarily around immune suppression. While suppressing the immune response can reduce symptoms, it does not address the root cause. A treatment that could reprogram the immune system to stop attacking the body’s own tissue would, researchers said, target the underlying dysfunction rather than merely managing its effects.
Dr. Konig and colleagues at Johns Hopkins are among the research teams studying these emerging treatments. The work involves altering dysfunctional immune systems in a variety of ways, according to the research described in November 2025.
The development of such therapies could affect the millions of people living with autoimmune diseases who currently depend on ongoing medication to manage conditions that today’s treatments cannot cure.