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DoD provides $1M for lupus research The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Congressionally-Directed Medical Research Program has awarded more than $2 million in additional grants for research on lupus and lupus biomarkers to two research institutions, including MUSC.   Steve Tomlinson, Ph.D., professor of Microbiology and Immunology, and Betty Diamond, M.D., chief of the Autoimmune Disease Center for the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research at the North Shore Medical Center in Manhasset, N.Y., each was awarded grants of more than $1 million, DoD announced in May.   Tomlinson’s team at MUSC, which includes Gary Gilkeson, M.D., co-principal investigator (PI), and Hideharu Sekine Ph.D., co-PI, will use a mouse model of lupus. The model will determine if targeting a certain cascade of proteins, known as the complement system, with a treatment that might target itself to areas of the body where it is causing tissue damage. The model can be a safer and more effective therapy for the disease, by minimizing immune suppression in the rest of the body. If the studies are successful, human studies can begin, which may lead to safer and more effective treatments for lupus, DoD said.   The lab at North Shore Medical Center will study the hormone estrogen to see what role it plays in triggering lupus disease activity in some mouse models, but not others. Hormones are suspected of contributing to the gender disparity of lupus, which strikes primarily young women, although the question of which hormones affect which subsets of patients in which manner remains unanswered. Understanding the details of how this works in some mice, while leaving other mice unaffected, may lead to better methods to test patients with lupus for hormonal disorders and develop new ways to control the disease through hormonal regulation.   Lupus is a complicated, potentially life-threatening inflammatory illness that can flare up without warning and may have unpredictable effects on different patients. The Lupus Foundation of America (LFA) successfully advocated in 2005 to have lupus biomarkers included in the peer-reviewed research program. Biomarkers are tests that need to be developed to help simplify the understanding of this complex illness and provide signposts for a more rational approach of treatment. With effective biomarkers, patients who are more likely to respond to specific kinds of treatments could be selected in advance, and during treatment the same biomarkers could be used to guide the dosing and the timing of treatments, to optimize their effectiveness and minimize side effects.   No new FDA-approved treatment for lupus has been developed in more than 40 years, and many of the existing treatments for lupus are toxic and can suppress the immune system too much, putting patients at risk for serious infections. Many targeted immune-modulating agents are being considered for testing in this disease, but the complexity of the illness and the difficulty in tracking outcomes raises barriers to the process. The development of new biomarkers for lupus could have profound benefits in obtaining FDA approval for new, safer and more effective therapies, not only by providing the sophisticated level of guidance needed so that these agents will work optimally, but also by simultaneously providing objective measurements to demonstrate if the new treatment is working. More targeted therapies, or even better biomarkers to guide existing treatments, will allow physicians to treat lupus while avoiding the sometimes devastating side effects caused by current methods used to control the disease.   In addition to successfully advocating to obtain funding from DoD medical research program for lupus biomarkers, the LFA has provided $600,000 in direct support to 10 research institutions around the nation for creating a unique repository for patient samples and clinical information to support studies to validate new lupus biomarkers in human studies. Congress has now provided nearly $5 million in new funding for lupus research through the DoD.     Friday, June 8, 2007 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.