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Medical University of South Carolina, Berg partner to identify potential lupus biomarkers
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The Medical University of South Carolina and Berg announced plans for a research partnership to identify potential lupus biomarkers in patients followed at the university’s rheumatology clinics.
“Lupus presents a variety of health concerns and complications, ranging from arthritis to renal failure and whilst drugs exist, they are only partially effective for about half our patients,” Gary Gilkeson, MD, professor of medicine at MUSC, said in a press release. “What we learn through this partnership should help provide tailored drug therapies to positively impact the lives of more patients.”
The Interrogative Biology platform by Berg, a biopharmaceutical company, would be applied to serum, urine and kidney data points in patients with lupus and controls at MUSC’s rheumatology clinics, according to the release. Using “a holistic, panomic approach to drug discovery,” the partnership will use metabolomics, lipidomics and proteomics data from tissue samples to analyze disease pathophysiology.
“This partnership allows us to expand and accelerate the search for lupus biomarkers,” Niven R. Narain, co-founder, president and chief technology officer of Berg, said in the release. “We’re looking to uncover actionable insights, leading to the identification of new targets and, ultimately, the development of more patient-friendly, personalized therapies.”
The Berg platform has been used to discover biomarkers for cancer, metabolic diseases, including diabetes and obesity, and neurodevelopment disorders, including autism spectrum disorder, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, according to the release.