Christine M. Grimaldi, PhD

Boehringer Ingelheim
(previously at Columbia University, New York, NY)

2005 Genetics

Substantial data indicate that the female sex hormone, estrogen, plays a role in making lupus far more prevalent in women than in men.

With LRI funding, Dr. Grimaldi is studying the genetic basis for estrogen response by looking at the genes in mice that encode the estrogen receptors—insight that could give clues as to how estrogen responses in humans are genetically regulated.

She tested the hypothesis that women whose lupus is made worse by hormone replacement therapy have mutations in the gene that codes for the estrogen receptor.

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