New NIH Research Initiative Supported by LFA Focuses on the Causes of Inflammation and Clinical Disease

The Lupus Foundation of America has renewed its support for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP) which recently announced a new initiative to discover the causes of inflammation and clinical disease. The new AMP Autoimmune and Immune-Mediated Diseases (AMP AIM) Program will use novel analytics to examine the interaction among innate and adaptive immune cells and tissue-resident cells. Data developed through this new program will further accelerate identifying and validating specific drug targets in lupus and other autoimmune diseases that may share immune and inflammatory pathways.

AMP AIM seeks to build upon the findings of the AMP Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA)/Lupus program established in 2014 with the support and involvement of the Lupus Foundation of America. Scientists have made meaningful progress in understanding the cell populations, disease pathways, and potential drug targets that drive lupus through that program. 

The new AMP AIM program’s research plan includes developing a knowledge/data portal that leverages existing AMP infrastructure and tools. The new knowledge portal will serve as an interface where researchers can integrate, analyze, and visualize all data developed through this initiative.

The NIH created AMP to increase the number of new medicines and tools to diagnose and monitor diseases and reduce the time and cost to develop them. Ensuring that people with lupus have access to new targeted and tolerable treatments is a strategic outcome for the Lupus Foundation of America. The Foundation will provide financial and other logistical support for the new AMP AIM program. Read more about AMP AIM.