Lupus Research Alliance Inaugurates Diversity Awards
The Lupus Research Alliance (LRA) inaugurated two new award mechanisms this past summer with the goal of alleviating the racial disparities prevalent in both autoimmune diseases and the biomedical research community. Three notable early career scientists from under-represented groups received the Diversity in Lupus Research Career Development Awards, and two postdoctoral fellows received the Diversity in Lupus Research Postdoctoral Awards.
In addition to her appointment as a clinician investigator at the SickKids Research Institute and associate professor at the University of Toronto, Dr. Knight is chair of the Lupus Section for the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance (CARRA). She is also co-leader of the CARRA Mental Health Workgroup and has been studying mental health and brain health in lupus patients since her fellowship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), characterizing depression and anxiety. Now, she has expanded her focus to cognition, using advanced brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to explore whether changes in the brain can be associated with lupus in particular.
“The hope,” she says, “is to couple the imaging information (from structural, diffusion tensor and functional MRIs) with markers in the blood and assessment of brain function to try and understand how much these changes are related to inflammation due to lupus.” Dr. Knight says the LRA awards are “inspiring and hopeful,” not only for current academic researchers but also for younger scientists pursuing their careers.
Another Career Development Award recipient, Ashira Blazer, MD, MSCI, who is an attending physician, Hospital for Special Surgery, and an assistant professor of medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York City, says, “This award is very important for me and also for the field. One of the things that’s been a big issue in rheumatology, and in medicine as a whole is that we don’t have enough investigators of color. They are less likely to get quality mentorship and less likely to have the ability to stay in the pipeline.”
During her own fellowship training, Dr. Blazer benefited from mentorship by Jill P. Buyon, MD, director of the Division of Rheumatology and the Lupus Center at NYU Langone, New York. “She is the person who encouraged me to think about doing bench science. So with these [LRA] grants, we are going to be able to provide mentorship opportunities for other trainees of color, an important step in improving that exposure.”
Dr. Blazer’s award enables her to continue her current line of research focusing on genetic variants of the apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1) gene, which have been linked to both atherosclerosis and renal disease in populations of African ancestry. A significant number of African Americans carry these mutations, a baseline genetic risk that is heightened with the development of lupus.
Dr. Blazer will also use the LRA award to further her work with collaborators in Ghana and Nigeria. She received the Commitment to Fellow and Faculty Development Award in 2018 from the Nigerian Society for Rheumatology.
In the U.S., she will be laying the groundwork for other studies that examine the interplay between genetic predisposition and environmental factors, such as structural racism and economic deprivation.
Dr. Blazer spends a lot of time with her patients early during their treatment, empowering them with education about their condition. That foundation of trust then becomes the basis for well-considered decisions about research study participation. “I think well-informed patients who are in a trusting environment are more than happy to participate in research,” she says.
Recipients of Postdoctoral Award to Promote Diversity in Lupus Research
Ruth Fernandez Ruiz, MD, of the Hospital for Special Surgery, New York City, is evaluating the impact of genetic variants in lupus progression. “I am thrilled and honored to be one of the inaugural recipients of the Diversity in Lupus Research Awards,” she says. “This funding will be instrumental in continuing my contributions to SLE research and advancing my academic career. I believe that the Diversity in Lupus Research award program by the LRA is a great initiative to address the profound underrepresentation of minorities in biomedical research.”
Vanessa Sue Wacleche, PhD, a research fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, is investigating peripheral T helper cells in lupus. “I feel blessed and humbled to receive this award,” she says. “I’m beyond excited to make a scientific contribution to understand better the immunopathology of lupus and propose therapeutic avenues.”
The third recipient of the Career Development Award, Erika Moore, PhD, University of Florida, Gainesville, is exploring lupus-related vasculitis in women of African vs. European descent. Dr. Moore is primarily a biomedical engineer and became involved in lupus research because of her “lived experience with loved ones who have lupus, a health disparity that disproportionately impacts Black women.” She and her team are using self-identified ancestry as a surrogate marker for understanding differences in type 1 interferon responses in monocytes.
“We’re hoping this platform will validate a model of vasculitis that occurs in lupus,” she says.
The researchers are looking for a reduced inflammatory response when blocking the receptors that are aggregated in lupus. Dr. Moore sees a point in the future when it may be possible to partner with other research laboratories and/or drug development companies and use these model systems to interrogate a variety of different targeted compounds.
Although Dr. Moore had no previous training in lupus, she says, “I’ve made a commitment to asking the questions that matter to me in an authentic manner. We can’t just go with the flow; we have to try to break barriers and be better. Having the LRA’s support for my investigations of ancestral contributions to variability in lupus is fantastic.”
Although Dr. Moore had no previous training in lupus, she says, “I’ve made a commitment to asking the questions that matter to me in an authentic manner. We can’t just go with the flow; we have to try to break barriers and be better. Having the LRA’s support for my investigations of ancestral contributions to variability in lupus is fantastic.”
Gretchen Henkel is a health and medical journalist based in California.
