Erin Taylor
Augusta University, GA·Physiology
Lupus is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the body's own tissues. It mostly affects women, and many patients develop high blood pressure and heart disease.
- Fields
Physiology
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
systemic lupus erythematosus
autoimmune disease
obesity
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- Test whether extra visceral fat worsens lupus and hypertension through harmful immune cells in fat, by surgically or pharmacologically depleting fat or its immune cells in female NZBWF1 mice.
- Test whether high leptin, a fat-derived hormone, drives lupus by acting directly on B and T lymphocytes, using pristane-induced lupus in mice whose B or T cells lack leptin receptors.
- Test whether leptin promotes lupus through the brain, by inducing disease with pristane in mice lacking leptin receptors in the central nervous system (Nestin-Cre x LepRflox/flox).
- Determine whether the sympathetic nervous system carries leptin's effects on autoimmune disease, using adrenergic receptor blockade in lupus mice.
More about the research
People with lupus often carry extra fat around their internal organs, even at a normal weight. They also have high levels of leptin, a hormone made by fat tissue. This project asks whether obesity and leptin make lupus worse and push up blood pressure, and if so, how.
Why it matters
High blood pressure and heart disease are major causes of illness and early death for people with lupus, most of whom are women. By identifying how fat tissue inflammation, leptin and immune cells raise blood pressure, this work could point to new ways to reduce hypertension and improve long-term health in people with autoimmune disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Irene Chernova
Yale University, CT·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Determine which cell death pathways B cells from lupus-prone versus healthy mice undergo when exposed to high sodium outside the body, and how the sodium-potassium pump (NKA) protects them.
Howard Chang
Stanford University, CA·Microbiology & Immunology
Characterize anti-Xist RNP antibodies (AXA), autoantibodies against a female-specific RNA-protein complex, in patient blood using a newly developed protein array.
Paula Ramos
Emory University, GA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Identify DNA methylation changes in people with lupus and matched controls that are linked to adverse and protective social support, measured with validated surveys.
The school
Augusta University: 11 labs on PI Pages, $166M a year on research, 37 research doctorates a year.
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