Dr. Virginia Pascual Awarded $3M Grant by the Lupus Research Alliance

The Global Team Science Award project led by Dr. Virginia Pascual, Director of the Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children's Health and Ronay Menschel Professor of Pediatrics aims to study childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (cSLE). Children often suffer from severe lupus symptoms as well as from side effects of current therapies; children with lupus often have a strong connection between their genetic makeup (DNA) and their disease; children also lack other illnesses that could complicate the understanding of research findings.

Dr. Pascual's team of Lupus of Early Onset (LEO) investigators will perform a two-part project. The first project will track 75 pediatric SLE patients at multiple timepoints, from when they first develop the disease, to record the type, features and activities of immune cells and antibodies present in their blood. Investigators will compare these results to data they already have on hand from other studies investigating lupus in humans and from preclinical models mimicking lupus disease in humans. Investigators will identify biomarkers that may be used to separate patients into major disease groups within pediatric SLE. The second project will study the genetic makeup of more than 700 pediatric SLE patients and their family members to determine which alterations in the genetic makeup of children with SLE correlate with predictors of the major groups identified in project 1. This will allow Dr. Pascual's team to improve our understanding of the contribution of genetics to disease phenotype. Ultimately, this can help form the basis for personalized therapy for people with lupus of any age.

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