The Keck School of Medicine of USC has received a generous $100,000 donation from PUMA for the Selena Gomez Fund for Lupus Research, two years after the singer/actress established the fund. The fund supports research at the school on new targeted therapies for lupus and the complications it can sometimes cause.
Selena Gomez’s donation will help fund Lupus research. (Photo/Daniel Torok,Getty Images)
“PUMA and Selena Gomez have made a generous donation to support our research efforts to find better therapies for lupus, which is a disease that has a profound effect on people’s lives,” says Laura Mosqueda, MD, dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “We deeply appreciate their generosity and advocacy.”
Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease that causes the immune system to attack different tissues in the body. About two in three people with lupus develop lupus nephritis, an inflammation of the kidneys that may require dialysis or a kidney transplant. An estimated 1.5 million Americans, including Gomez, have lupus.
“This is a cause that is close to my heart,” says Gomez, who has publicly shared her personal experience living with lupus, including undergoing a kidney transplant. “I created the Selena Gomez Fund for Lupus Research to help others who are facing challenges of their own. I am grateful to have a partner like PUMA that shares my mission of one day finding a cure.”
In the two years since it was created, the Selena Gomez Fund for Lupus Research has helped researchers Janos Peti-Peterdi, MD, PhD, professor of physiology and neuroscience, Chaim Jacob, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, and William Stohl, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, gain a better understanding of what causes lupus and lupus nephritis, as well as find new ways to treat it. The researchers have developed a state-of-the-art imaging technique to study the earliest stage of lupus development and to identify the sources of lupus complications. They have also discovered a new therapeutic strategy for preserving kidney function and are exploring the immunological pathways that underlie the multiple systemic manifestations of lupus.
“Selena is part of our family and what better way to celebrate our first anniversary together than to endorse the cause she is most passionate about. With our donation to the Selena Gomez Fund for Lupus Research at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, we want to support the research on this chronic autoimmune disease that affects millions of people, so that hopefully one day there will be a cure,” says PUMA CEO Bjørn Gulden.
Donations can be made to the Selena Gomez Fund for Lupus Research by visiting keck2.usc.edu/giving/selenafund.