Mission Statement
The UCSF Lupus Program is composed of a multi-disciplinary group of health care professionals who share a common vision: to find safer, more effective therapies for lupus and to improve the quality of life of patients living with lupus. Supporting this vision, the Lupus Collaboration has established several important goals:

• To provide pediatric and adult patients with the highest quality clinical care
• To give pediatric and adult patients access to promising new therapies through clinical trials
• To understand the basic immunologic processes underlying lupus
• To elucidate the role of genetics in the development of lupus
• To understand and treat problems with memory, concentration, and thinking in lupus patients
• To study the socioeconomic impact of lupus on individual patients and their families

Lupus Immunology
UCSF investigators actively working in the area of lupus immunology are Drs. Arthur Weiss, David Wofsy, David Daikh, and Leonard Dragone. Disorders of the immune system can often lead to autoimmune diseases such as lupus. These investigators are involved in defining the basic biochemical mechanisms that regulate normal immune responses and in understanding how disorders in such mechanisms contribute to the development of lupus.

Genetic Epidemiology
Dr. Lindsey Criswell and her group are working to better understand the genetic and environmental causes of autoimmune diseases, such as lupus, in order to discover better treatments and eventually cures for people living with an autoimmune disease. For more information about her research studies please call her research coordinator toll free at 1-888-223-3067 (ext. 1), or visit her website at: http://medicine.ucsf.edu/lupus/

Health Services and Outcome Research
Investigators actively working in the area of health services and outcomes research include Dr. Ed Yelin and Dr. Patty Katz. Drs. Katz and Yelin have established a large cohort of approximately 1,000 adults with lupus, the Lupus Outcomes Study (LOS). Dr. Katz is using data from the LOS to examine disability among individuals with lupus, including factors that may predispose people to disability and potential psychological outcomes of disability.Dr. Yelin is using the LOS data to study the determinants of work loss among patients with lupus and to evaluate how the growth of managed care is affecting their access to healthcare, including access to rheumatologists.

Pediatric Lupus
Dr. Emily von Scheven and Dr. Diana Milojevic lead the UCSF Pediatric Rheumatology Clinical Research Program. This program is committed to the ethical conduct of research that improves the understanding and treatment of childhood and adolescent lupus. Current studies focus on childhood osteoporosis, anti-phospholipid antibody syndrome, and prevention of premature atherosclerosis. For further information regarding these and other studies in pediatric lupus, please contact the study coordinator at (415) 502-7685.

Acknowledgments

Support for UCSF Lupus Program endeavors comes from the Rosalind Russell Medical Research Center for Arthritis, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Lupus Clinical Trials Consortium, and the State of California.