“Up until this point, all therapy for lupus is a blunt instrument. It’s broad immunosuppression,”
Lupus affects more than 1.5 million people in the U.S., and the standard treatment shuts down the whole immune system. The Nature study ties the disease to too little activity in the AHR pathway, which lets T peripheral helper cells drive autoantibody production. The reversal so far happened in blood samples in a lab. The team is still working out how to get the molecules into people.