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2008 Publications

Lupus is a devastating illness that affects as many as 2 million Americans and 15 million worldwide.

For nearly everyone who suffers from lupus, each day brings a constant struggle with joint pain, stiffness and arthritis.

With mis-wired immune systems, those with lupus are subject to constant attacks on the joints in their hands, wrists and feet. Everyday tasks as simple as buttoning a shirt or chopping vegetables become excruciating. As the disease progresses, the attacks can also extend to the shoulders, knees and ankles. “Too often, living with lupus means living with chronic pain,” says Dr. John Harley, who chairs OMRF’s Arthritis and Immunology Research Program.

In 2008, Harley and his OMRF colleagues made major strides toward unmasking the genetic roots of lupus. In a trio of watershed studies in the journal Nature Genetics, Harley and Drs. Swapan Nath, Patrick Gaffney and Kathy Moser identified 14 genes associated with lupus. Those genes included four previously thought unconnected to the disease and a region once believed to be “junk DNA,” a piece of genetic material without any known function.

“As clinical investigators, our goal is to reduce the burden of suffering caused by this disease,” says Harley. “These new findings promise to transform our understanding of lupus and to accelerate the day when safe and effective therapies are available.”

The findings represent a combination of a massive research effort spearheaded by OMRF; the project involved 7,00 research volunteers and 150 scientists and staff at more than a dozen institiutions across the U.S. and Europe.