NIH Awards $1.7 Million Grant for Lupus Research

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $1.7 million grant to a University of Oklahoma researcher to continue investigating a protein that may help explain why lupus develops and how it might be treated more precisely.

Carol Webb, PhD, a professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, has spent her career studying the protein ARID3a. Her research has shown that people with lupus have higher numbers of B cells (a type of immune cell) containing ARID3a than healthy individuals, and patients with more of these cells tend to have more active and severe disease. In mouse research models, increasing ARID3a in B cells caused the animals to produce harmful antibodies that attacked their own tissues, similar to what is observed in lupus. In contrast, Dr. Webb’s team found that in healthy people, these young B cells do not contain ARID3a. But in people with lupus, some of these young B cells do contain the protein. This finding suggests ARID3a may allow harmful cells to slip past the body’s natural protections.

With the new NIH funding, the researchers will focus on three main goals: identifying the genes directly controlled by ARID3a, understanding how the protein helps B cells break normal safety rules, and testing whether blocking ARID3a in mice can reduce lupus symptoms. If the studies are successful, ARID3a could become both a warning sign of disease activity and a possible target for new treatments. Instead of suppressing the entire immune system, which is how many current lupus drugs work, future therapies might more precisely target the pathways that cause harm.

“Lupus is a complicated disease in which the immune system turns against the body and can damage organs such as the kidneys and brain, making it especially challenging to study and treat,” said Dr. Webb. “We believe these B cells may eventually help us detect disease earlier and guide the development of more effective, targeted therapies.”