Mission

The goals of the University of Florida Center for Autoimmune Diseases are to understand the causes of systemic autoimmunity and to find more effective approaches to the prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment of these disorders. The diseases emphasized include Lupus, Sjögren’s syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, polymyositis, scleroderma and certain forms of vasculitis.

The Center is currently focusing on adapting the disease management model to autoimmune disease. One of the pre-requisites for success is ability to identify individuals who are at risk for a poor outcome, enabling resources to be directed toward prevention. Because accurate information is limited in these disorders, research to define the risk of adverse outcomes and to develop approaches to avoid them is an important component of the Center’s activities.

The overall strategy includes establishing the following:

1. multidisciplinary clinical units to provide accurate diagnostic information and high quality patient care,

2.basic and translational clinical research aimed at identifying those at risk for the development of systemic autoimmune disease or for progressing to serious end-organ damage,

3. dvanced diagnostics and biological markers that will be used as an adjunct to clinical assessment for monitoring disease activity and identifying complications, such as involvement of the kidney or lung,

4. experimental therapeutics aimed at preventing autoimmune complications, and

5. educational programs, both conferences and web based, for patients and their physicians