Our lupus research hopes to identify and isolate the immune cells responsible for making self-attacking autoantibodies. We want to know how they’re different from normal immune cells.
Establishing these differences will show how they develop, and what causes them to switch to attack the body. This will lead to new treatments, for e.g. by revealing cellular vulnerabilities that respond to targeted drug therapies. The ultimate aim is to eliminate the bad (self-attacking) cells while preserving the rest of the immune system.
Our research uses cellular genomics to study these individual cells, and understand how and why they’ve ‘gone rogue’. The mutations or variations in the DNA of these cells may point to the common root cause of all autoimmune disease.
Our focus is also targeted at lupus nephritis: a common and devastating symptom of lupus where autoantibodies attack the kidneys.
- Meet the scientists working on lupus in our B Cell Biology and Rheumatology and Autoimmunity teams.
