Ann Marshak-Rothstein, professor of Medicine and Rheumatology at University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical School, received the 2016 Lupus Insight Prize for promising research to improve the treatment of the lupus-related skin disease called cutaneous lupus. The award was announced at the recent 16th Annual Meeting of the Federation of Clinical…
A bill recently moved forward by the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee on labor, health human services and education for 2017 includes $6 million for lupus research and education, in addition to $34 billion for medical research overall at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Specifically, the committee bill supports funding for the…
Regen BioPharma has identified small molecules that activate NR2F6, an immune checkpoint recently identified by the company. This is the first step in a series of initiatives to develop small molecules the biotech will use as the basis to create an oral drug with potent anti-inflammatory properties, or a checkpoint inhibitor pill.
Treatments for lupus systemic erythematosus (SLE) have greatly improved over time due to advances in the understanding of the condition. The past few decades, however, have not produced expected additional progress in lupus treatment. A new commentary from researchers in Spain reviews the current situation with lupus therapies, including their recommendations for…
Scientists at Bristol-Myers Squibb have uncovered mechanisms explaining why African-Americans with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) experience more serious symptoms and become sick at earlier ages than American patients of European descent. The difference lies in B-cells according to the study “B cells from African American lupus patients exhibit…
A bill recently passed by the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee includes critical funding for lupus research and education. The Lupus Foundation of America (LFA) thanks the committee for supporting the funding bill, which has moved to the full Senate for consideration. If the bill is approved, it would bring an additional $6 million…
San Francisco-based Thunderbolt — the first company established by Vitesse Biologics — has attained the rights to Astellas Pharma’s BAFF/APRIL dual antagonist program — a therapeutic solution developed for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) as well as a range of B-cell disorders, according to a recent announcement from Baxalta,…
The Alliance for Children’s Therapeutics presented positive results from an early study of KPI Therapeutics/Kineta’s lead drug candidate, dalazatide, as a possible treatment for children and teenagers with lupus nephritis. The data were given at the recent European League Against Rheumatism’s 17th Annual Congress in London. A key finding was that “patients with…
Researchers at New York University School of Medicine discovered that an enzyme’s failure to digest the DNA from dying cells can trigger the production of the auto-antibodies that are the hallmark of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The findings were published in Cell, in a study titled “Digestion of Chromatin in…
Ten marker genes related to systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) were identified from three different types of blood samples. These genes may have the potential to be used as biomarkers to diagnose or even predict SLE. They could also be used as therapeutic markers to measure how well SLE patients respond to treatment.