Lupus Innovation Award (LIA)

2025 Funded Grants

• Exploring the Impact of Viral Infections on Lupus Development and Heterogeneity

  Samira Asgari, PhD - Early Stage Investigator
  Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai
  

• Dissecting the Origins, Specificities, and Helper Functions of T Cells in SLE

  Katia Faliti, PhD - Early-Stage Investigator
  Emory University
  

• Defining fibroblast heterogeneity and its association with kidney function loss in lupus nephritis

  Andrea Fava, MD
  Johns Hopkins
  

• Mechanisms linking the cell death machinery to TLR7 immunity in lupus

  Alexander Gitlin, MD, PhD
  Sloan Kettering Institute
  

• Neutrophil migrasomes in Antiphospholipid Syndrome

  Jason Knight, MD, PhD
  University of Michigan
  

• The NLRP1 inflammasome as a driver of systemic lupus erythematosus pathogenesis

  Patrick Mitchell, PhD
  University of Washington
  

2024 Funded Grants

• Alteration of epigenetic programs of HSPC underlies the chronic activation of innate cells in SLE

  Franck Barrat, PhD
  The Hospital for Special Surgery
  

• Investigating the role of IL-12 in Lupus

  Rebecca Elsner, PhD
  University of Pittsburgh
  

• Better days ahead: Improving renal repair after LN flare

  Nisha Limaye, PhD
  de Duve Institute
  

• Dysfunctional skin and bone loss in lupus

  Theresa Lu, MD, PhD
  The Hospital for Special Surgery
  

• Anti-commensal bacteria reactivity of VH4-34-encoded IgG antibodies in SLE

  Eric Meffre, PhD
  Stanford University School of Medicine
  

• Probing autoreactive T cells across tissues in SLE

  Carolyn Moderbacher, PhD
  La Jolla Institute For Immunology
  

• “Failure to Appropriately Digest” as a new model of lupus pathogenesis

  Justin Perry, PhD
  Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
  

• Multimodal Nanobody Immunotherapy for SLE

  Novalia Pishesha, PhD
  Boston Children's Hospital
  

• Dysfunctional Tregs in lupus

  Deepak Rao, MD, PhD
  Brigham and Women's Hospital, Inc.
  

• Piezo1 in Lupus Associated Cardiovascular Disease and Cognitive Impairment

  Justin Van Beusecum, PhD
  Medical University of South Carolina
  

2023 Funded Grants

• Predicting response and non-response to therapy in SLE

  Marta Alarcón-Riquelme, M.D., Ph.D.
  Fundación Pública Andaluza Progreso Y Salud
  

• Identifying the mechanism of virus-induced lupus

  Tarin Bigley, M.D., Ph.D.
  Washington University, School of Medicine
  

• Mechanisms for human TLR8 induced placental injury

  Anne Davidson, MBBS
  The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research
  

• Defining the determinants of lupus progression and cancerous transformation

  Federico Gaiti, Ph.D.
  University Health Network
  

• Engineered immunological niche to monitor lupus nephritis

  Aaron Morris, Ph.D.
  The Regents of the University of Michigan
  

• Systematic dissection of lupus non-coding risk variants in primary B cells

  John Ray, Ph.D.
  Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason
  

• A multiomic approach to unravel immunology behind pregnancy complications in SLE

  Lisa van Baarsen, Ph.D.
  Amsterdam UMC
  

2022 Funded Grants

• Vascular pathophysiology in CNS SLE: The blood-CSF barrier

  Mark William DiFrancesco, PhD
  Children’s Hospital Medical Center
  

• Clinical applications of urine proteomics to lupus nephritis

  Andrea Fava, MD
  Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
  

• Noninvasive imaging of lupus nephritis disease activity

  Eric Gale, PhD
  Massachusetts General Hospital
  

• Turning sweet on autoimmunity: impact of glycans in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus pathogenesis and treatment

  Salomé S. Pinho, PhD
  Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde
  

• Targeting VISTA in lupus skin disease and photosensitivity

  Sladjana Skopelja-Gardner, PhD
  Dartmouth College
  

2021 Funded Grants

• Insights into lupus heterogeneity by single-cell profiling of B cell activation

  Maria Gutierrez-Arcelus, PhD
  Boston Children's Hospital