Category: Lupus

ZymoGenetics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ZGEN) announced that, together with its collaborator Merck Serono, it has reached agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on a Special Protocol Assessment (SPA) to conduct a pivotal clinical trial with the investigational new drug atacicept for the treatment of patients with lupus nephritis. This is one of two clinical studies intended to form part of the application for marketing authorization.

Vaccine-like treatment shows promise for fighting lupusResearchers in Indiana have developed a vaccine-like treatment that shows promise for treating lupus, a disease of the immune system that affects about 1.5 million people in the United States. The new treatment, described in the September/October issue of ACS’ Molecular Pharmaceutics, a bi-monthly journal, reduced disease symptoms and extended the lives of laboratory mice that researchers use to study lupus.

The Department of Defense (DoD) Congressionally Directed Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (PRMRP) has awarded $5 million in new funding to support important research studies on lupus and lupus biomarkers. The PRMRP has funded three new grants in 2007 from funds authorized by Congress last year. These projects are in addition to the two projects previously awarded from FY 2005 funds.

The Lupus Foundation of America (LFA) has awarded an additional 2 millions dollars in research grants and fellowships to stimulate important new areas of research to find the causes of and cure for lupus, a disabling and life threatening disease that affects approximately one in 200 Americans.

Dylan Trakas of Spartanburg, South Carolina and James Mason of Houston, Texas, two recent college graduates, ended their 15 week journey on Saturday, September 15, after biking nearly 4,000 miles from Bellingham, Washington to Charleston, South Carolina.Their goal was to raise awareness of lupus, a debilitating and life-threatening disease which causes the immune system to attack the body’s own cells and tissue.

Mutations in a gene researchers call TREX1 is one cause for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), a severe and incurable autoimmune disease. This is the result of a new study headed by Professor Norbert Hubner from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch and Dr. Min Ae Lee-Kirsch from the Technical University Dresden, (both in Germany) in collaboration with scientists from Finland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the USA.

Findings published online in the prestigious Journal of Experimental Medicine may offer new hope to people suffering from a previously unsuspected form of lupus.

A compound related to a drug used in humans to prevent organ-transplant rejection attacks a key biochemical process in the faulty immune cells of lupus-prone mice, suggesting a possible new approach to combating the disease, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found.”We found that an analog of rapamycin is very effective in improving all aspects of the disease in lupus-prone mice,” said Dr.

Evelyn V. Hess, M.D., MACP, MACR, is an internationally known expert in lupus, with a special interest in the area of the environmental aspects of lupus. In recognition of her outstanding contributions to lupus research over the course of her long career, the Lupus Foundation of America, Inc. (LFA) established the Evelyn V.

Lupus is an autoimmune disease which produces antibodies causing injuries to the body’s cells and tissue. It makes the immune system go out of control and the organism attack healthy cells instead of the germs on them. This pathology, which affects more than 5 million people around the world, is more developed in women of fertile age between 15 and 44 years old.