The Lupus Research Alliance announced the seven recipients of its 2023 Lupus Innovation Awards honoring researchers developing and studying novel therapeutics, technologies, and strategies to help patients with lupus manage the disease. “We are proud to … support critical lupus research. The talented Lupus Innovation Award recipients are pushing the edge of lupus research, with the goal of improving the lives of [patients] with lupus,” commented Teodora Staeva, PhD, Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Lupus Research Alliance. Among the winners were:
- Ansuman Satpathy, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pathology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, for his development of new technologies capable of detecting mutations that lead to lupus progression and analyzing how these mutations affect the immune system
- Salomé Pinho, PhD, Professor of Immunology at the Institute for Research and Innovation in Health, for her research into glycosylation and how it may impact disease development
- Sladjana Skopelja-Gardner, PhD, Assistant Professor of Rheumatology and Immunology at the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine, for her study of the mechanisms driving V-domain immunoglobulin suppressor of T-cell activation proteins’ increased production of interferon after patients with lupus are exposed to ultraviolet light
- Maximilian F. Konig, MD, Assistant Professor of Rheumatology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, for his innovative research into optimizing treatments that target antiphospholipid syndrome–related thrombosis, which may be responsible for up to 33% of all lupus-associated mortality
- Andrea Fava, MD, Assistant Professor of Rheumatology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, for his research into the early detection of lupus nephritis, which is expected to pave the way for novel preventive medicines
- Eric Gale, PhD, Assistant Professor of Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, for his research into new methods of diagnosing and monitoring lupus nephritis with injectable dyes that may eliminate the need for invasive testing
- Mark DiFrancesco, PhD, Assistant Professor of Radiology at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, for his research into how neuropsychiatric lupus may cause leaking in the protective barriers separating the blood from brain tissue.