Of his foundational study on chimeric antigen receptors, Dr. Radic says the results were “quite astounding and broadly positive.” Now that those results are mirrored in patient studies, the bottom line is that there are more techniques in the treatment armamentarium for improving quality of life for patients.
For the present, both Drs. Radic and Schett are pleased to be honored by the LRA in this manner. “If you read the names of people honored [by the Lupus Insight Prize], it’s the cream of the crop of immunologists,” says Dr. Radic, “So I’m particularly honored and humbled by being included in this group.”
On May 23, the LRA announced that it had granted Lupus Innovation Awards to nine international researchers. These awards provide investigators up to $150,000 per year for two years to further their work exploring the mechanisms of the disease, as well as identifying novel targets and pathways that could be harnessed to treat this complex autoimmune disease.
The investigations and researchers’ locales are wide ranging. For example, Laura Belver, PhD, of Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, Barcelona, is involved with CAR-based cell therapy to eliminate disease-causing B cells, as are the two principals mentioned in the accompanying article. Another investigator, Lisa van Baarsen, PhD, hails from the University of Amsterdam, and with her colleagues aims to better understand systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) complications in pregnancy. Aaron Morris, PhD, a biomedical engineer with the Regents of the University of Michigan, intends to develop a novel diagnostic tool less invasive than surgical kidney biopsies to facilitate diagnosis of lupus nephritis. And Tarin Bigley, MD, PhD, a pediatric rheumatologist at Washington University in St. Louis, will study how infection with roseolovirus in early life may be related to immune cell alterations and autoimmunity in SLE.
To learn more about each of these investigators and their work, visit https://tinyurl.com/yc3jnwkb.
References
- Kansal R, Richardson N, Neeli I, et al. Sustained B cell depletion by CD19-targeted CAR T cells is a highly effective treatment for murine lupus. 2019 Mar;11(482):eaav1648.
- Mougiakakos D, Krönke G, Völkl S, et al. CD19-targeted CAR T cells in refractory systemic lupus erythematosus. 2021 Aug;385(6):567–569.
