Researchers have discovered a previously unknown ability of a group of immune system cells, known as Atypical B cells (ABCs), to fight infectious diseases such as malaria. The scientists say ABCs could also be key to developing new treatments for chronic autoimmune conditions such as lupus ..read more

Researchers have worked out how to fix a defect that causes lupus, and hope their discovery will offer effective long-term treatment ..read more

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease, in which the immune system that normally protects the body from invading microbes turns against the body's own cells. Researchers studied four patients from two families who developed symptoms of SLE in the first years of life. As familial occurrence of SLE in young children is highly unusual, the team searched for a primary genetic cause and found a mutation in the UNC93B1 gene in all affected family members ..read more

In some diseases, the underlying processes can start years before a diagnosis is made. A new study finds that people who later develop multiple sclerosis (MS) are more likely to have conditions like depression, constipation and urinary tract infections five years before their MS diagnosis than people who do not develop MS. The study also found that sexual problems and bladder infections, or cystitis, are more likely in people who later develop MS ..read more

For years, researchers and clinicians have known that lupus, an autoimmune condition, occurs in women at a rate nine times higher than in men. Some of the factors that cause the disease's high prevalence in women have eluded discovery, but in a new study investigating the immune system processes in lupus and the X chromosome, researchers have uncovered answers about the disease's frequency in females ..read more

Recurrent bouts of systemic lupus erythematosus, marked by the body's immune system attack of its own tissues, closely tracked with measureable upticks in growth in the gut of a certain species of bacteria ..read more

Scientists have made an important breakthrough in understanding what goes wrong in our bodies during the progression of inflammatory diseases and -- in doing so -- unearthed a potential new therapeutic target. The scientists have found that an enzyme called fumarate hydratase is repressed in macrophages, a frontline inflammatory cell type implicated in a range of diseases including lupus, arthritis, sepsis and COVID-19 ..read more

A pair of researchers reports the success of their new, at-home method for early diagnosis and monitoring of lupus nephritis. or inflammation of the kidneys, one of the most severe complications for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, known as lupus ..read more

Targeting iron metabolism in immune system cells may offer a new approach for treating systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) -- the most common form of the chronic autoimmune disease lupus. A multidisciplinary team of investigators has discovered that blocking an iron uptake receptor reduces disease pathology and promotes the activity of anti-inflammatory regulatory T cells in a mouse model of SLE ..read more

Investigators have reported highly promising early results for CAR T therapy in a small set of patients with the autoimmune disease lupus ..read more