Accolades

Two University faculty members have received prestigious research awards from the Lupus Research Institute. Following its scientific review of 81 applications, the institute selected 15 recipients to receive three-year, $300,000 grants.

These grants, according to the institute, will support “innovative and creative work, representing outside-the-box thinking that has the potential to make a significant impact on the field of lupus research.” Chicago was the only institution to receive more than one.

Rheumatologist Marcus Clark, Associate Professor in Medicine, and Martin Weigert, Professor in Pathology and Director of the Gwen Knapp Center for Lupus and Immunology Research, were chosen for their novel research approaches to lupus, an autoimmune disorder that affects approximately 1.5 million Americans.

Clark will study the pathobiology of resistant B lymphocytes in human lupus nephritis, and Weigert will focus on light chain editors and autoimmunity.

Martin Weigert, Professor in Pathology and Director of the Gwen Knapp Center for Lupus and Immunology Research, has been awarded the Carol-Nachman Prize, a prestigious international award for rheumatology research.

Weigert, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, has made seminal contributions to the understanding of antibody responses, including the discovery of somatic hypermutation.

He and his laboratory research team have pioneered genetic approaches to model lupus and rheumatoid arthritis autoimmunity in mice and have recently discovered “editing” as a new mechanism of B-cell tolerance.

Sponsored by the German city of Weisbaden, the Carol-Nachman Prize is granted annually in recognition of outstanding, innovative research in rheumatology. It carries an award of 38,000 Euro ($44,648.46) to be used to promote clinical and experimental research in the different fields of rheumatology.