The Lupus Foundation of America (LFA), the nation's leading nonprofit health organization dedicated to finding the causes and cure for lupus, is proud to announce the winners of this year's Gina Finzi Memorial Student Summer Fellowship.

The LFA has awarded the five summer fellowships as part of the LFA's ongoing efforts to stimulate increased research on lupus. The five researchers will conduct their studies under the supervision of an established lupus investigator. The LFA fellowship program aims to foster interest in a career in lupus research by supporting basic, clinical and psychosocial research studies by young investigators.

The five 2007 award recipients and their studies:

-- James Y. Chen
University of California, Los Angeles; David Geffen School of Medicine; Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology
"Investigating the Immuno-modulatory Defect of Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Lupus"

-- Gopal Chandrasekharan
University of Oklahoma; Health Sciences Center, Division of Pediatric Rheumatology
"The Role of TLR9-Signaling in Active Childhood Systemic Lupus Erythematosus"

-- Alexandra Cunningham
Emory University
"Barriers to Initial Diagnosis and Treatment Among Adult Female African-Americans with SLE in Atlanta"

-- Andrew Hwang
Brown University; Brigham and Women's Hospital
"Evaluation of Internet Information for Persons with Early Symptoms of SLE"

-- Rajkumar Srikrishnan
University of California, San Diego; School of Medicine
"Autoantibody Microarray Surveys of SLE Families"

The summer fellowship program was established by former LFA President Dr. Sergio Finzi in memory of his daughter Gina, who passed away from lupus. Since 1984, the Gina Finzi Memorial Summer Fellowship program has supported the work of more than 190 young investigators. The LFA's research program aims to bring down barriers that have impeded progress on lupus, with a goal to make clinical trials of potential new safe and effective therapies possible.

The LFA also seeks to increase public and private funding for lupus research by educating policymakers on the need to greatly increase government funding for lupus research, and by working with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to stimulate additional interest and investment in lupus. It is the Foundation's hope that this investment in research will produce new information, which may directly lead to much larger projects and substantially increased funding from other sources, particularly the National Institutes of Health.

This research program is supported through donations from the LFA's constituent chapters, private foundations, corporations, and the public.

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