“This golf tournament has grown into being one of our largest fundraisers of the year,” said Regan Birr, executive director of the Lupus Research Foundation.
The Lupus Research Foundation has been raising money for lupus treatments and for a cure since 2014, and in that time, it has raised more than $1.3 million.
Birr has lupus, and knows what an impact it can have on a person.
“Lupus is an autoimmune disease where we think it has a genetic basis and then you have an environmental trigger, which means an external trigger. For some people its sunlight, some people it’s infection, some people it’s stress that can cause your organs to be attacked. In my case, my kidneys were attacked and it was life threatening,” said Birr.
Since that time, more treatment options have become available
“When I was first diagnosed, there wasn’t any dedicated lupus drug on the market. Well, a few years later, one came on the market. Now, thanks to our researcher, there are three on the market.”
Along with these new treatments, research funded by the Lupus Research Foundation has discovered genetic markers that can tell someone that they may have lupus before they develop symptoms. And each step forward, is a step closer to a cure.
“Once a cure is found, it’s going to affect millions of people,” said Birr.
