Renowned Researchers Aim to Uncover Underlying Causes of Lupus to Unlock Personalized Therapies

Today, the Lupus Research Alliance, the world’s largest private funder of lupus research, announced the first recipients of the Mechanistic Clinical Award. This grant program is designed to advance precision medicine in lupus by testing new biomarkers and treatments, while also investigating the root causes of the disease to help guide more personalized care.

While impacting millions worldwide, lupus presents differently in each person and is known for high variability in symptoms and manifestations as well as in disease severity, progression, and response to therapy. The Lupus Research Alliance established the Mechanistic Clinical Award program to dig deeper into what is happening at a molecular and cellular level, to help guide therapeutic development and improve the quality of life of people living with this disease.

“Getting to the ‘how’ behind discoveries — understanding how therapies work on a biological level and how that might vary from person-to-person — is essential to transforming how we treat this complex disease and enable precision medicine,” Maya Bader, PhD, Director of Research at the Lupus Research Alliance, said. “This program represents the next frontier in lupus research — connecting the dots between underlying mechanisms and meaningful outcomes. We are proud to support two investigators whose work will deepen our understanding of lupus therapies at the individual level, bringing us closer to delivering the right treatment to the right person.”

The program is divided into two critical focus areas: one supporting research using lupus patient biospecimens with an award of $500,000 over two years, and another funding small mechanistic clinical trials with an award of $1,000,000 over three years. Both grants will leverage the unique resources of the Lupus Research Alliance and clinical affiliate Lupus Therapeutics — including the Lupus Nexus, a comprehensive registry, biorepository, and data platform, and the Lupus Clinical Investigators Network (LuCIN), a consortium of more than 60 sites collaborating with industry partners to advance lupus clinical trials.

The inaugural recipients were selected after a rigorous and comprehensive review of their potential to investigate mechanisms that may further the pursuit of precision medicine. They are:

• Deborah Cunninghame Graham, PhD, Non-Clinical Senior Lecturer in Molecular Medicine in the Department of Medical & Molecular Genetics, King’s College London
  • Cunninghame Graham is studying two immune proteins – OX40 and OX40L – that are associated with genetic risk and disease activity in lupus and are detectable in the blood. Her research explores whether measuring them can help predict disease activity and whether blocking their interaction could lead to more targeted lupus treatments. Findings from this study may immediately support therapeutic testing in lupus, as therapies targeting OX40/OX40L are already undergoing clinical testing in autoimmunity.
• Victoria Werth, MD, Professor of Dermatology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
  • Werth is investigating how the antimalarial medication quinacrine helps a subset of cutaneous lupus patients who don’t respond to the standard treatment of another antimalarial, hydroxychloroquine. Her team has found that quinacrine may be more effective in some patients by targeting certain parts of the immune system that hydroxychloroquine doesn’t affect. By analyzing patient-derived skin and blood samples in a clinical trial testing quinacrine therapy, Dr. Werth aims to identify biomarkers that predict how a patient might respond to treatment — guiding more personalized care.

Applications for the 2026 Mechanistic Clinical Awards, which will uniquely focus on lifestyle interventions, are now being accepted and can be found here. To learn more about the Lupus Research Alliance’s funded research, visit here.

About Lupus
Lupus is a chronic, complex autoimmune disease that affects millions of people worldwide. In lupus, the immune system, meant to defend against infections, produces autoantibodies that mistake the body’s own cells as foreign, causing other immune cells to attack organs such as the kidneys, brain, heart, lungs, and skin, as well as blood and joints. Ninety percent of people with lupus are women, most often diagnosed between the ages of 15–45. Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian and Pacific Islander people are disproportionately affected by lupus.

About the Lupus Research Alliance
The Lupus Research Alliance is the largest non-governmental, non-profit funder of lupus research worldwide. The organization aims to transform treatment by funding the most innovative lupus research, fostering scientific talent, and driving discovery toward better diagnostics, improved treatments and, ultimately, a cure for lupus. Because the Lupus Research Alliance’s Board of Directors funds all administrative and fundraising costs, 100% of all donations goes to support lupus research programs.

For more information or to donate to lupus research, visit the LRA at LupusResearch.org and on social media at: X, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Media Contact:
Rebekah Barnes
Rbarnes@lupusresearch.org