University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, April 23, 1991
11
Professor seeks cure for complex disease
Little previous research conducted on Lupus although it afflicts many
By Sarah Davis
By Sarah Davis
Kaplan staff writer
Since the mid-19th century, the wolf dis ease has attacked.
It was named for the jagged-edged, butterfly-shaped rash that formed across the bridge of the nose and both cheeks of some patients. It resembled a wolf's bite.
Today, the name of this disease is as complex as the disease itself.
Dean Stetter, associate professor of biochemistry, performs chronic immunological disorder. Lupus causes the body's de-DNA sequencing on a human gene infected with Lupus, a fenses to turn against healthy tissues and organs.
Systemic lupus erythematosus, more com-monly known as Lupus, is a chronic immunological disorder that causes the body's spleen to turn against its healthy tissues and organs.
Every year, Lupus afflicts about 50,000 people in the United States and 500,000 to 1 million, mostly women, worldwide. Lupus can cause people than leukemia, eczema or AIDS.
A KU professor and his 15-member team of researchers are working to decrease that
Dean Stetler, associate professor of biochemistry, has been researching the mysterious disease for 12 years.
"It's been largely ignored, and I always root for the underdog," he said. "It'd be great if we can find a cure, but I'd be happy if we can contribute in some way."
But the road to a cure may be a long one. Lupus is easily mistaken for other diseases because its symptoms are vague and it affects many different areas. The disease affects the brain, joints, bones, lungs and other organs. It also is characterized by flare-ups and remissions that come and go unpredictably.
Joseph J. Lies/KANSAN
"The symptoms are not specific." Stetler said. "In some patients, the primary target is the kidney or the lungs, and in Lupus, that's one of the things we need to know. 'Why are there so many targets?' In order to treat or care we're going to need to take care of all these."
Stetler is taking care of a lot more than that.
Time-consuming activities
He manages to balance his research with being chairperson of the genetics program at the University of Kansas, teaching several courses and serving as a member of many committees.
"I'd be bored if I wasn't busy," he said. "If you like what you're doing, then it doesn't seem like work. One just has to keep track of everything."
And he manages to do just that with the help of a tiny appointment book — he has learned to write small — that he keeps in his back pocket at all times.
"If I lose it, I'm in trouble," he said.
chuckling. "I washed it once, and I was lost for months."
But in terms of his science-oriented interests, he was never lost.
Stetler grew up in Glen Elder, a town of 400 people in north-central Kansas. In high school, he took all the science classes he could, but it was when he took his first microbiology course at KU in 1972 that he knew he was hooked.
The class was easy for him, and he enjoyed it because he could make sense out of the conversation.
"That's how you know what you want to be said." Once you find that, that's the mah'fat.
Setter found what he liked to do right away. He graduated from KU in 1976 with a degree in microbiology, earned a doctorate from KU in 1979 and then headed to Hershey, Pa., where he was a post-doctoral student at Penn State College of Medicine. He was awarded the honor of pharmacology from 1982 to 1985 at Penn State college before he returned to KU.
"I liked it really well here." Stetter said. "It's a great place. It's the best university in Kansas."
He and his wife, Marsha, also wanted to move back to the Midwest to be closer to their families. She grew up in a small Kansas town 150 miles from where her husband lived. They met through a mutual friend and were married right after high school.
He and his wife have three children, ages 6,
12 and 18, and Stetler manager to squeeze in.
"It's not easy," he admitted, laughing. "The research has to almost come first without sacrificing the family."
Understanding the disease
Stetler is busy researching Lupus during the day between his microbiology lab and Gene Expression I classes. He arrives at his lab in Haworth Hall about 8 a.m. and goes
Stetler and his research team are examining various aspects of the disease.
"First we need to understand the disease's cause — how and why it initiates — and once we understand that, then it's easier to develop a drug or technique that can counteract the disease. We simply want to know why it happens and how the disease progreses."
He is studying the urine of Lapus patients to establish disease severity and to predict the extent of reabsorption.
He has detected an antibody called anti RNA polymerase I in the urine. This antibody becomes trapped in the kidneys and can lead to kidney failure and, eventually, death.
Because kidney failure is one of the most
common symptoms in Lupus patients, Stefler is examining what the antibody is reacting to.
Two kinds of drugs — prednisone and cyclophosphamide — are available to Lupus patients. These drugs stop immune cells from dividing, which is what causes the symptoms of Lupus. But these drugs suppress the whole immune system so that the patients are more susceptible to infectious diseases.
"We are trying to develop therapeutic agents that would specifically kill only those cells that are making the antibodies because they are not causing that are causing the disease." Steller said.
He also has done some speculating about how Lupus is contracted.
"I think it's more a genetic predisposition to an environmental factor or an etiological agent, such as a virus, fungus or bacteria," he said.
A scientist's role model
Rachel Lottes, a research technician working with Stetler, said that no matter how the disease started, something needed to be done.
"I do hope there will be some type of treatment and that there will be a better concept of the disease or determining how it originated since it's so devastating to the body," she said. "I feel like I'm making a contribution to humanity in a very small way."
She said Stetler's high expectations of the research team helped to reach that goal.
"He gives a lot of guidance, but he doesn't force you to work at his pace." she said. "He has a humble approach to what he does. He's very down to earth."
Harold Dickensheets, a Las Vegas graduate student who is also part of the research team at the University of Texas.
He is not the only one.
"I think he's a good role model for scientists," he said. "You have to be devoted to science, but you have to know when to give time to other things. That's one aspect I'd like to develop while I'm here."
Stetler's 18-year-old daughter, Amber, plans to attend KU this fall and follow in her father's scientific footsteps. But she wants to become a secondary school science teacher because she says what her father does takes too much time.
"I suppose that will work out nicely because she can send me her best students,"
His youngest daughter also shows an interest in science and occasionally goes with
"My enthusiasm and interest in the subject rub off on them," he said.
It seems to have the same effect on many others as well.
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