Yale’s Colton Center for Autoimmunity Awards 2022 Grants to Six Innovative Research Projects

The Colton Center for Autoimmunity at Yale has announced six grant-funded research projects for 2022, selected for their potential to advance new diagnostics, therapeutics, and mechanistic insights into autoimmune diseases. Since launching its funding program in 2020, the center has now supported 15 projects in total — including several that have already led to intellectual property development.

This year’s cohort spans an exceptionally wide range of disciplines and disease areas. Dr. Alicia Little is targeting the transcription factor HIF1 as a therapeutic entry point in discoid lupus erythematosus. Professor David Hafler is sequencing T cell receptors from multiple sclerosis patients to identify disease-driving antigens for immunotherapy. Associate Professor Carrie Lucas is investigating a human kinase deficiency to identify a therapeutic target for pathogenic autoantibody production in lupus.

Professor Christopher Pittenger is developing novel methodologies to identify autoantibodies that may underlie rapid-onset neuroinflammatory pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder — a striking example of the Colton Center’s deliberately broad definition of autoimmune disease. Professor Mehran Sadeghi is developing non-invasive molecular imaging approaches in autoimmunity, and Dr. Stephanie Thorn is evaluating novel SPECT/CT imaging techniques to assess fibrosis and therapy in systemic sclerosis.

The center, established in 2019 by Judith and Stewart Colton and directed by Professor Joseph Craft, operates through Yale Ventures to identify and support high-risk, high-reward translational research at the interface of basic science and clinical application — the kind of early-stage work that is often too nascent for traditional funding sources.