Lupus

2022 Emerging Leaders Prize - Joint 1st place, £100,000: Dr Alex Clarke, Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology.

Dr Alex Clarke’s research aims to understand the fundamental causes of lupus, with the objective of identifying novel treatment targets. He studies how the metabolism of immune cells differs in autoimmunity, and how this contributes to the development of lupus.

When cells are deficient in energy, nutrients, or are stressed, they activate a recycling system called ‘autophagy’ to break down large molecules into smaller ones for fuel. Dr Clarke’s work in lupus has shown that autophagy is activated in B cells, and is required for them to produce antibodies. His research group has now identified two new metabolic vulnerabilities in another B cell type, called germinal centre B cells, which are known to be dysfunctional in lupus. This body of work improves our understanding of lupus and helps to open new therapeutic avenues.

Thanks to the Emerging Leaders Prize, Dr Clarke will be able to study the metabolism of plasmacytoid dendritic cells in lupus. These cells are the main producers of a type of interferon that causes many of the symptoms and signs of lupus. If researchers can understand how cell metabolism is altered, they might be able to rebalance it and, as a result, develop new treatment approaches.