Welcome to Research Week!

I'm excited to welcome you to Research Week! All this week, the Lupus Foundation of America will provide a behind the scenes look at the innovative science of lupus happening every day. You'll meet several of the researchers we support who are solving the most complex and challenging mysteries in lupus. 

Your journey will take you from an inside look at a phase II U.S. clinical trial of mesenchymal stem cells as a possible new treatment for lupus to programs that are building a new generation of lupus researchers. We are committed to overcoming persistent problems that have interfered with progress and setting a course to solve them. Our research focus is on achieving three critical goals: identify the causes of lupus, discover better ways to control symptoms and, ultimately, find pathways to cure lupus. 

Our research efforts go beyond just awarding grants to lupus investigators.  It’s because of our thousands of advocates across the country we are able to stimulate hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding for lupus research and help overcome regulatory hurdles to accelerate research to get new treatments into the hands of people with lupus faster. Most recently, U.S. House of Representatives has proposed $10 million in funding for the Department of Defense Lupus Research program for FY2020—if approved this will double the funding from FY2019. This was only made possible because of so many of you making your voices heard on Capitol Hill.  

We are proud that the initiatives funded by the Lupus Foundation of America since 1977 have supported every major lupus research breakthrough. This accomplishment would not have been possible without the generous support of people like you. 

This is why Research Week excites us! We look forward to sharing information about some of our research efforts that are enabling us to tackle lupus from every direction.  We remain committed to driving research to deliver the most significant impact on peoples' lives in the shortest time possible. We know we have more work to do. I hope you continue to support us as we move closer to the cure.  

Sign up to get our latest updates and follow us on social media to follow along during Research Week to get insights on our groundbreaking work in lupus research.  

Finally, I encourage you to share information from Research Week on social media, in chat rooms and online forums. Help spread the word about the many ways that we are working together to bring hope for a better quality of life to all people affected by lupus around the world.