An OU Health Sciences Center professor and researcher is one of 12 recipients of a $300,000 grant to study the causes of lupus.

OU College of Medicine professor Amr Sawalha received the grant from the Lupus Research Institute, according to a press release. Sawalha will use those funds to investigate the specific triggers of the disease.

Lupus is an autoimmune disease, which means the body’s immune system attacks itself, Sawalha said. Lupus causes patients to exhibit a wide range of symptoms, depending on its severity, Sawalha said.

“The presentation is a spectrum. Some are milder, and some are more severe,” Sawalha said. “It depends on the organ affected. If it’s the kidneys and central nervous system, the patient usually has a poor prognosis.”

Researchers currently do not know what causes the immune system to attack the body, so there is no cure for the disease, Sawalha said.

“As a rheumatologist, I see a lot of patients that suffer from this,” Sawalha said. “To make their lives better, we need to understand the disease. [It] is chronic and relapsing, so there is significant mortality.”

The Lupus Research Institute’s fact sheet estimates 1.5 million Americans have lupus.

The disease is more common in African-Americans and Hispanics, who also tend to have more severe symptoms, according to the research institute fact sheet.

Symptoms of lupus include swollen and painful joints, a fever, rashes and discoloration in the fingers, according to the fact sheet.

There is no set test to diagnose lupus, but doctors look for a set of known symptoms. Once diagnosed, doctors cannot cure it but simply try to manage symptoms.

Sawalha will focus his research on a part of the immune system called T-cells, which target and destroy foreign cells within the body, he said. He will look specifically at whether the DNA that codes for T-cells differs in patients with lupus.

Sawalha’s research offers hope for pinpointing where DNA is affected by the disease and possibly discovering how it could be fixed, according to a Lupus Research Institute press release.

“His discoveries hold hope for identifying novel molecules that can be used as biomarkers and targeted for therapy in lupus patients,” the press release said.

Sawalha has been researching lupus for about 10 years now, he said.