Research
Lupus can cause serious, irreversible organ damage when inflammation is not controlled. For this reason, early diagnosis and treatment is extremely important.
“A lot of patients come into our clinic in the very late stages of lupus when the disease has already spread to multiple organs,” said Dr. May Choi, a Rheumatologist and Research Scientist at Arthritis Research Canada. “We still don’t know what causes lupus, but If we understand the mechanism by which it happens – the pathways that are involved – we can find treatments that can act specifically to stop those pathways from occurring.”
Dr. Choi runs a unique lab that discovers and tests new biomarkers. She hopes that her research will lead to an earlier and more accurate diagnosis of lupus and stop people from progressing to the later stages.
Expand the menus below and click the links to learn more about some of this critical lupus research.
Biomarkers Research
- Anti-KIF20B Autoantibodies are Associated with Cranial Neuropathy in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
- Update on Autoantibodies and Related Biomarkers in Autoimmune Inflammatory Myopathies
- Machine Learning Identifies Clusters of Longitudinal Autoantibody Profiles Predictive of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Outcomes
- Serologic Phenotypes Distinguish Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Patients Developing Interstitial Lung Disease and/or Myositis
- Anti-SMN Autoantibodies in Mixed Connective Tissue Disease are Associated with a Severe Systemic Sclerosis Phenotype
- Identification of Novel Clusters of Co-Expressing Cytokines in a Diagnostic Cytokine Multiplex Test
- Risk Prediction Models for Incident Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Among Women in the Nurses’ Health Study Cohorts Using Genetics, Family History, and Lifestyle and Environmental Factors
- Anti–Valosin‐Containing Protein (VCP/p97) Autoantibodies in Inclusion Body Myositis and Other Inflammatory Myopathies
- Platelets and Neutrophils Co-Drive Procoagulant Potential in Secondary Antiphospholipid Syndrome During Pregnancy
- Prevalence and Titres of Antinuclear Antibodies in Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
- Cytokine Autoantibodies in SARS-CoV-2 Prepandemic and Intrapandemic Samples from an SLE Cohort
- Longitudinal Analysis of ANA in the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) Inception Cohort
- Gaps and Trends in Autoantibody Testing
- Antinuclear Antibody Testing: Gold Standard Revisited
- SARS-CoV-2 Seroprevalence, Seroconversion and Neutralizing Antibodies in a Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Cohort and Comparison to Controls
Lupus and Cognitive/Brain Research
- Serum S100A8/A9 and MMP-9 Levels are Elevated in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Patients with Cognitive Impairment
- Association of Mycophenolate and Azathioprine Use with Cognitive Function in Systemic Lupus
- Assessing the Utility of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment in Screening for Cognitive Impairment in Patients With Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
- Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Phenotypes Formed from Machine Learning with a Specific Focus on Cognitive Impairment
- Association of Mycophenolate and Azathioprine Use with Cognitive Function in Systemic Lupus
- Insight into Intraindividual Variability Across Neuropsychological Tests and its Association with Cognitive Dysfunction in Patients with Lupus
Lupus Prevention Research
- Association of Sleep Deprivation and the Risk of Developing Systemic Lupus Erythematosus among Women
- Fish Oil Supplementation in Patients With and Without Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Targeting Pro-Inflammatory and Pro-Resolving Lipid Mediators
- Understanding the Concept of Pre-Clinical Autoimmunity: Prediction and Prevention of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Identifying Risk Factors and Developing Strategies Against Disease Development
Other Lupus Research
- Systemic Lupus in the Era of Machine Learning Medicine
- Personalizing Cardiovascular Risk Prediction for Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
- Health Information Use By Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) Pre and During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Prevalence of ECG Testing and Characteristics Among New Hydroxychloroquine and Chloroquine Users Within a Multi-Center Tertiary Care Center
- Cardiovascular Implications of Immune Disorders in Women
- Association of Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors and the Risk of Developing Rheumatoid Arthritis Among Women
- Validation of the Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics for Assessing Cognitive Impairment in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
Related Research
- New Signals in Blood May Help to Understand Lupus Better
- Managing Lupus and You: Navigate your Journey with MyLupusGuide – Part I
- Managing Lupus and You: Navigate your Journey with MyLupusGuide – Part II
- Remission and Low Disease Activity are Associated with Lower Healthcare Costs: Results from the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) Inception Cohort
- Association Between Severe Nonadherence to Hydroxychloroquine and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Flares, Damage, and Mortality in 660 Patients From the SLICC Inception Cohort
- Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Women with Lupus Nephritis in Pregnancy Therapeutic Challenge (SWITCH): The Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics experience
- The Global Epidemiology of SLE: Narrowing the Knowledge Gaps
- Assessing the Costs of Neuropsychiatric Disease in the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics Cohort Using Multistate Modeling
- Remission and Low Disease Activity (LDA) Prevent Damage Accrual in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Results from the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) Inception Cohort
- Measuring the Impact of MyLupusGuide in Canada: Results of a Randomized Controlled Study
- Evaluating the Construct of Damage in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
Research Scientist
Dr. May Choi, MD FRCPC, MPH
Research Scientist - Rheumatology, Arthritis Research Canada
Dr. May Choi is a recent graduate of the Cumming School of Medicine’s Adult Rheumatology training program. She’s also the Associate Director of MitogenDx and the Associate Director of Research at the University of Calgary’s Lupus Centre of Excellence. Dr. Choi completed her Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) degree at the University of Calgary in 2010, her Doctor of Medicine at the University of Alberta in 2014 and Internal Medicine training at the University of Calgary in 2017. In 2021, she completed her Masters of Public Health in Epidemiology Program at Harvard University and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Lupus Fellowship under the supervision of Dr. Karen Costenbader.
Her recent publications and current research interests are focused on biomarker discovery and validation for the prediction of clinical outcomes in early onset lupus, as well as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) epidemiology.
