How a Seattle Genetics cancer drug could help lupus patients with kidney damage

The kidney is often a target of autoimmune diseases, including lupus. But little is known about how immune cells adapt to the low oxygen level in renal tissue to wreak havoc.

A group of scientists at Yale University identified a transcription factor that they say mediates the functioning of T cells in an oxygen-deprived environment. Then they found that an experimental cancer drug being developed by Seattle Genetics helped reverse kidney damage in mouse models of lupus nephritis. They published the results in Science Translational Medicine.