The American College of Rheumatology has awarded Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation researcher Judith James, M.D., Ph.D., the 2007 Edmund L. Dubois Memorial Achievement Award. The prize is presented each year to an outstanding investigator in the field of lupus research.
James was honored as a result of her groundbreaking work in predicting lupus, a disease in which the body turns the weapons of its immune system against itself. Lupus affects more than one million Americans and has no known cure.
James received the award at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Boston earlier this month. With more than 11,000 people in attendance, the conference is the world’s largest annual gathering of physicians, scientists and health care professionals devoted to rheumatology.
“This is an honor, as well as an opportunity to talk about the exciting advances being made in the prediction of lupus,” said James, who also presented the Dubois Memorial Lecture at the conference. “I always look forward to representing OMRF and Oklahoma at scientific forums. It’s a wonderful way to share our research about lupus with scientists in the national and international communities.”
At OMRF, James holds the Lou C. Kerr Chair in Biomedical Research. A native Oklahoman, she hails from Pond Creek and has been a member of OMRF’s scientific staff since 1994. She earned her M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Oklahoma.
OMRF (omrf.org) is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institute dedicated to understanding and developing more effective treatments for human disease. Its scientists focus on such critical research areas as Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, lupus and cardiovascular disease.
