All that heals is gold, suggests a new Harvard Medical School (HMS) study.

Though doctors have been using gold-based drugs successfully for over 75 years, the HMS study reveals for the first time the biochemical processes that make the drugs work, paving the way for the development of a new generation of gold-based drugs with fewer harmful side effects.

The study, conducted by HMS researchers Stephen De Wall and Brian DeDecker and published in the Feb. 27 issue of the journal Nature Chemical Biology, reported that “special forms of gold, platinum, and other classes of medicinal metals work by stripping bacteria and virus particles from the grasp of a key immune system protein,” according to a press release.

Gold-based drugs have been used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases.

De Wall and DeDecker’s research began in 2001, with the goal of finding new drugs to suppress autoimmune response, a reaction by the body against its own cells or tissues.

Instead, they “discovered a biochemical mechanism that may help explain how an old drugs works,” DeDecker said in the press release.

“This previously unknown allosteric mechanism may help resolve how gold(I) drugs affect the progress of rheumatoid arthritis and may provide a basis for developing a new class of anti-autoimmune drugs,” the study report reads.

When asked whether the study results would have immediate impact on the gold-based drugs production, DeDecker said more research needs to be done to understand the functions of specific metals.

“Basically we’ve got a mechanism in a test tube,” said DeDecker. “One can use that to develop a new generation of gold-based drugs.”