Give your views on future research

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We have been asked to circulate the following explanation and link to an online questionnaire by the research team at University College London. 

It’s slightly technical, but we would really appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to complete the brief online survey so that they can learn about the type of research that is important to you.

How you can help influence a new research proposal
We are researchers at University College London studying patients with lupus and antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) to increase our understanding of what causes these diseases and so improve their treatment. We have a new and exciting idea that we believe could improve patient care and would like to get your thoughts on how important and relevant it is to patients before we apply for research funding to study it.

We are interested in how certain parts of the immune system (antibodies) interact with blood clotting (coagulation) and inflammatory (complement) pathways to cause disease.

Antibodies are proteins that normally bind to foreign substances, such as infections, and clear them from the body. In autoimmune conditions such as lupus and APS, the immune system becomes scrambled and produces (auto) antibodies which bind to the body’s own cells causing damage. 

We are very interested in one particular autoantibody that binds to an enzyme called activated Factor (F)Xa. This enzyme is an important part of the coagulation pathway that becomes activated after injury to stop bleeding. It is also the target of new blood thinning drugs that work by inhibiting FXa activity in patients with excessive blood clots, such as rivaroxaban. FXa is also known to cause inflammation and recent evidence has shown that it may occur through activation of complement proteins. These proteins usually help the body to fight infection, but they are also known to be important in lupus and APS. 

No one has studied whether anti-FXa antibodies alter FXa and complement activation in SLE and APS. We think that being able to identify anti-FXa antibodies and knowing how they interact with FXa and complement to cause disease would allow us to tailor treatments for patients according to their blood results. So patients positive for these autoantibodies may be suitable for treatment with anti-FXa drugs because of their ability to block FXa induced complement activation, even in the absence of a blood clot. Therefore, greater knowledge of how these antibodies affect FXa and complement would help us understand the benefits of this treatment. We also hope to develop new drugs to target these diseases. 

However, before we apply for this research we’d like to ask you some simple questions to check we are looking to answer the questions that are most relevant to you. Please click on the link below to answer these questions:

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Q5VRKV8
 
All of us at the UCL APS research group would like to extend a grateful thank you for your time and support in answering these questions, it’s only together we can really make progress in treating these diseases.

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