JDRF International, the Lupus Research Alliance and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society joined forces to accelerate research and discovery in autoimmunity and are proud to announce the recipients of their first joint grants.
| NEW YORK, Feb. 24, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- JDRF International, the Lupus Research Alliance and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society joined forces to accelerate research and discovery in autoimmunity and are proud to announce the recipients of their first joint grants. Called Decoding Immune-Mediated Diseases - Novel Approaches for Therapeutic Insights, the new grant program will support the research of eight grant recipients from major academic centers around the world. This marks the first time these three organizations are jointly funding research projects looking at common underlying disease mechanisms.
Autoimmune and immune-mediated diseases are chronic disorders in which the immune system produces a harmful response against its own cells, tissues and/or organs that results in inflammation and organ damage. According to the NIH, some 24 million Americans suffer from the more than 80 autoimmune diseases. Some autoimmune diseases target one area of the body; for instance, type 1 diabetes (T1D) affects the pancreas while multiple sclerosis (MS) damages the nervous system. In contrast, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) can affect the entire body, attacking virtually any organ or tissue. Insufficient knowledge of how these diseases progress, as well as their heterogeneity is a common challenge among T1D, lupus and MS—that this grant program aims to overcome. The Decoding Immune-Mediated Diseases grants will provide researchers either up to $450,000 over two years or $225,000 over one year depending on the scope of the project. Each study will investigate the immune system’s role in the development of lupus, T1D and/or MS. The 2021 awardees are examining possible common mechanisms that could cause or contribute to the development of at least two of the three autoimmune diseases. Ultimately, the researchers hope to find novel biological targets and strategies for therapies to treat the diseases. Visit DecodingAutoimmunity.org to learn about each of the following grantees and their projects:
Goals for this Autoimmune Partnership Teodora Staeva, Ph.D., LRA Chief Scientific Officer, notes, “Because the initiation and progression of autoimmune diseases are still poorly understood and their cure has yet to be identified, we joined with JDRF and NMSS to support projects that could provide broad insights into autoimmune diseases and identify pathways distinctly affected in each specific disease.” She adds, “Decoding the mechanisms common to these three serious disorders of the immune system will help scientists to not only develop therapeutic targets, but also to identify which patients can most benefit from them.” “This partnership creates the opportunity to increase the pool of investigators working across autoimmune disease areas, exploring shared environmental and genetic risk factors and using comparative approaches to provide insights on the most promising pathways to target each disease. We hope this research will lead to new strategies to regulate the immune system,” says Mark Allegretta, Ph.D., Vice President of Research at the National MS Society. Visit DecodingAutoimmunity.org for more information. About JDRF International About the Lupus Research Alliance About the National MS Society
SOURCE JDRF; National Multiple Sclerosis Society; Lupus Research Alliance |
View original content to download multimedia:
