LRI Chicago

Pioneering Discovery to Prevent, Treat, and Cure Lupus

LRI’s bold and innovative lupus research in America’s heartland is brightening the outlook for people with lupus.

It was just a few years ago that prominent members of the Chicago lupus community pulled together to form LRI’s Midwest base.

Now, 10 researchers in five states, from Illinois to Minnesota and Michigan to Ohio, are forging ahead with their bold ideas. Six have gone on to win over $13 million in ongoing funding to continue the work that the LRI took a chance on when no one else would.

Marcus Clark, MD

University of Chicago

Dr. Clark has won a total of $5.9 million to further explore, explain, and expand on a major discovery initially funded by the LRI that no one else would take a chance on at the time. Most recently, he got notice of a prestigious $4.2 million, 5-year “Autoimmunity Center of Excellence Grant” to further explore the relationship between lupus and B cell tolerance.

Zhixin (Jason) Zhang, PhD

University of Nebraska, Omaha, NE

As a result of his LRI-funded discoveries showing that lupus can result from B cells in overdrive, this Omaha investigator now has two NIH grants totaling $2.9 million. “Without the LRI we wouldn’t have been able to generate the preliminary data for the NIH grants. LRI support made this happen.” – Dr. Zhang

Martin Weigert, PhD

University of Chicago

Dr. Weigert, recipient of two LRI grants, has published extensively and also gone on to secure millions in grants from the NIH and the Dana Foundation to continue his work.

Jochen Mattner, MD

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, OH

Thanks to LRI funding, Dr. Mattner has helped to confirm a long-held suspicion that certain bacterial or viral infections can elicit strong immune responses that prompt autoimmune illnesses such as lupus. He’s our most recent Midwest researcher to win NIH funding.

Mariana J. Kaplan, MD

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

With LRI funding, Dr. Kaplan reports that her team “…found that the [female] lupus patients had abnormal vascular function that was impaired to the same extent seen in the heart disease patients — despite the fact that the lupus patients were approximately half the age.”

Meet more hardworking Midwesterners thinking outside the box to find better treatments and a cure for lupus.