Disease and Biomarker Profiling of Chinese Lupus Nephritis

In the proposed study , Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Research ( NIBR ) collaborates with Reni HospitalAffiated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine ( Ren ) , aiming to identify particular LNendotype , and to discover novel biomarkers which link the endotype to disease phenotype , especially todisease monitorng , treatment response and prognosis prediction . The study proposes to take bothcandidate approach ( reported biomarkers ) and unbiased high-throughput proteomics profiling tools( Somascan measures up to 7,000 protein analytes ) to analyze 100 Class I / V LN patients with welldocumented clinical annotation , treatment schedule and disease follow up . Both serum / plasma and urrpatients will be extensively characterized with a focus on non-invasive biomarkediscovery and validation . Integrated analysis will be performed to associate patient molecular signature withtheir clinical annotation , renal pathology features , and response to Soc treatment . We will generahypothesis from these analyses to propose molecular markers to predict patient response to Soc treatmentand to endotype the disease , discover the mechanisms that could contrbute to unsatisfactory response toSoc , and identity more specific and sensitive non-invasive biomarkers in serum or urine that can be used in disease monitoring , disease prognosis and patient stratificationproposed study Will help usunderstand the heterogeneity of LN at the molecular level , which could be an essential first step towardsLN precision medicine . It will provide scientific rationale for improved LN clinical diagnosis , novel therapeutichypothesis , patient stratification , clinical study design and combination strategy.