2025 Recipient of the Lupus Canada Catalyst Award

Mohammed Osman, PhD

Institution: Governors of the University of Alberta

Project Title: Defining the molecular drivers of fatigue in Lupus: a pilot study

Project Summary: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a potentially lethal multisystem autoimmune disease that is poorly understood. Severe fatigue is a common and debilitating challenge faced by many patients with SLE, but mechanisms promoting this are uncertain. Indeed, in our pre-liminary analysis, we included patients with SLE with minimal disease activity and found that nearly 50 % of them developed symptoms compatible with chronic fatigue syndrome. Many, but not all of these patients had severe fatigue associated with pain, similar to fibromyalgia, and also cognitive dysfunction or brain fog. Although the reasons for these symptoms are poorly understood, we have recently shown that patients with other inflammatory diseases such as long COVID, and scleroderma develop increased inflammatory changes in their blood. Little is known about changes in patients with lupus and fatigue.

We hypothesize that patients with SLE with severe fatigue and possibly pain and brain fog; may have higher indicators of inflammation, and oxidative damage in their blood. We suspect that these changes may be directly linked to their symptoms.

To address our hypothesis, we will compare patients with lupus and severe fatigue, pain and brain fog with lupus patients that do not have these symptoms (and also age-matched healthy volunteers, and patients with idiopathic fibromyalgia) from three different Canadian Lupus clinics (University of Alberta, University of Calgary, and University of Western Ontario).  These studies will help us deepen our understanding of mechanisms promoting debilitating symptoms in patients with lupus. They will also potentially allow us to develop blood tests that can help identify these patients better, which may help future design better treatment strategies.