Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a complex autoimmune disease predominantly affecting women. Lupus nephritis (LN), is a leading cause of high mortality. Timely treatment of LN flares with anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressant drugs is critical, but flares are not currently diagnosed in a point-of-care or home setting; the gold standard for LN flare diagnosis is renal biopsy. At-home or Point-of-care (POC) detection of LN flares would improve treatment responsiveness access and facilitate SLE clinical research. We propose 3 specific aims:
AIM 1 : To develop multiplex quantitative Biomarker Mini-array (BMA) for urinary SLE flare markers.
AIM 2 : To develop a reliable, convenient Biomarker Mini-array for LN flare identification by smartphone based analysis and reporting system (SBARS).
AIM 3 : To evaluate the clinical performance of the BMA-SBARS tests in disease settings, using urine samples from cross- sectional and longitudinal cohorts of LN patients. The primary innovation of the proposed work lies in its development of a prototype practical POC/self-testing urine test for LN flares. The technology itself will have broad impact in self-management of chronic diseases at home, especially for aged patients.
We are aiming at building a urinary Biomarker Mini-Array (BMA) for an autoimmune kidney disease lupus nephritis, and a smartphone-based analysis/reporting system (SBARS) to process the BMA data, in order to monitor lupus flare in real-time at-home without the need of touching the kidney.
