Nir Hacohen, PhD

Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA

2007 Genetics

It’s now relatively clear that the genes a person inherits can make him or her more susceptible to lupus. Identifying these genes and figuring out how they cause disease is a major challenge in lupus research today.

In his novel LRI research, Dr. Hacohen will individually switch off thousands of genes of the mouse and human genomes using a powerful cutting-edge technology—RNA interference—to reveal which control the response to DNA complexes that exacerbate the destructive lupus immune system.

Knowledge of these critical genes could also provide new lupus drug targets.

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