The Genetic Basis of Lupus

Even if you haven’t watched the TV show House MD, you’re probably familiar with the phrase “it’s never lupus”. But have you stopped to consider why it’s never lupus? Or why lupus is so often suspected in the first case? Well, dear listeners, this episode aims to get at the heart of those questions, which is easier said than done. Like many other autoimmune diseases, lupus erythematosus continues to baffle, but we know a lot more now than we used to. In this episode, we take you through that knowledge as best we can and then trace the steps of how we came to first recognize, then describe, and then treat lupus, a journey that takes us through how we learned about autoimmunity in the first place. If you’ve ever been curious about how lupus got its name (wolf bite, anyone?) or what the pregnancy compensation hypothesis could mean for this and other autoimmune diseases, then this is the episode for you.

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