Irene Chernova
Yale University, CT·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Lupus is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the body's own tissues. When it strikes the kidneys, called lupus nephritis, about 10% of patients progress to kidney failure, and there are no targeted treatments.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Physiology
- Topics
lupus nephritis
systemic lupus erythematosus
autoimmune disease
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- 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.
- Alter the kidney's sodium environment in lupus mouse models and assess effects on B cell function, including antibody and cytokine (immune signal) production and persistence in the kidney.
- Use in situ imaging and RNA hybridization on kidney biopsies from lupus nephritis patients to map the functional landscape of kidney-infiltrating B cells, including their NKA expression.
More about the research
Diseased kidneys fill with lymphocytes, white blood cells including antibody-making B cells. The more B cells there are, the worse the damage. The kidney is also a harsh place for cells, with sodium levels up to twice those in blood. This raises a question: how do invading B cells survive there, and does salt shape what they do?
Why it matters
Lupus nephritis causes serious illness and kidney failure but lacks targeted therapies. By showing how the salty kidney environment and the sodium-potassium pump help harmful B cells survive, this work could identify kidney-specific drug targets for lupus nephritis. Such targets may limit B cell damage in the kidney without broadly suppressing immunity.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Erin Taylor
Augusta University, GA·Physiology
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.
Marcus Clark
University of Chicago, IL·Microbiology & Immunology
Define BRWD1's functions in germinal center B cells and test whether they depend on its conversion of static cohesin to dynamic, DNA-looping cohesin, using Brwd1 deletion.
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
Yale University: 73 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 438 research doctorates a year.
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