Congressional Briefing Highlights Progress and Promise in Autoimmune Disease Research

A New Approach to Autoimmune Research

On July 22, 2026, the Autoimmune Association, in partnership with the National Coalition of Autoimmune Patient Groups, hosted its second Congressional Briefing on the Office of Autoimmune Disease Research (OADR) and the future of autoimmune research in the United States.

The briefing highlighted progress in implementing the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Autoimmune Disease Research and the opportunities ahead to build on that momentum.

Molly Murray, President and CEO of the Autoimmune Association, moderated a panel featuring patients, family members, researchers, and federal research leaders. Together, they explored how greater coordination across autoimmune diseases is changing research — and what continued federal support could make possible.

More than 50 million Americans live with one or more of over 140 known autoimmune diseases. Yet autoimmune disease research receives less than three cents of every dollar invested in NIH research.

Historically, autoimmune research has often been divided by individual diseases, medical specialties, and NIH institutes and centers. The creation of OADR marked an important change by establishing a federal office dedicated to coordinating autoimmune research across NIH and identifying opportunities for researchers to work together.

 View the Recording

Moving From Planning to Action

Dr. Victoria Shanmugam, Director of OADR within the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health, shared how the office is moving from strategic planning to implementation.

Since releasing the first NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Autoimmune Disease Research, OADR has established a coordinating committee representing NIH institutes and centers that fund autoimmune research, supported scientific awards and clinical trials, launched the NOURISH Challenge focused on nutrition and immune health, and developed new tools to help researchers collaborate across diseases.

The progress reflects a broader shift in autoimmune research: moving away from studying each disease entirely on its own and toward identifying shared biological mechanisms that may connect multiple autoimmune conditions.

One example is the Autoimmune Disease Analysis Platform and Testing Space, or ADAPTS.

Created in response to a congressional directive to develop a repository for autoimmune research, ADAPTS allows researchers to analyze information across multiple existing datasets without requiring the data to be moved into one central location.

This approach protects data security and governance while giving researchers the ability to look for common patterns, biomarkers, and mechanisms across autoimmune diseases.

Over time, this type of shared research infrastructure could help scientists identify autoimmune disease earlier, find new uses for existing treatments, improve clinical trials, and develop therapies better matched to an individual patient’s immune system.

Research Focused on Treating the Cause

Dr. Maureen Su, a pediatric endocrinologist at UCLA and leader of an OADR-supported Autoimmune Center of Excellence, discussed how this coordinated research approach is also influencing patient care.

The NIH Autoimmune Centers of Excellence bring basic scientists and clinical researchers together so that discoveries in the laboratory can move more quickly toward treatments for patients.

Dr. Su explained that many autoimmune endocrine diseases have traditionally been treated by replacing hormones that are lost when the immune system attacks healthy tissue.

Researchers are now asking a more ambitious question: Can the immune system itself be retrained?

Research in autoimmune polyglandular syndrome type 1 (APS-1) and type 1 diabetes is beginning to explore treatments that address the immune dysfunction driving disease rather than only managing its effects.

That shift could ultimately lead to therapies that change the course of autoimmune disease.

What Research Progress Means for Patients

For 18-year-old Sam Finch, that progress is personal.

Sam shared her experience living with APS-1, an ultrarare autoimmune disease. Her journey included years of misdiagnosis, hospitalizations, seizures, painful injections, extensive medications, hair loss, exhaustion, and major disruptions to her education.

Eventually, research helped provide both a diagnosis and new treatment options.

The difference has been life-changing.

After missing significant periods of school, Sam graduated at the top of her class and is preparing to attend nursing school. Inspired by the care she received, she hopes to provide that same kind of support to others.

Sam’s mother, Robin Finch, also shared the challenges her family faced while searching for answers. For years, she researched symptoms, attended conferences, sought specialists, and navigated a healthcare system in which information was often separated by disease and medical specialty.

Today, she sees greater reason for hope.

Better collaboration, stronger research infrastructure, and a growing understanding of the connections among autoimmune diseases could help future patients receive answers sooner and gain access to better treatment options.

Sustaining the Momentum

The briefing also emphasized that continued progress depends on sustained federal investment.

Robin urged policymakers to provide stable and predictable research funding, not only to support current studies but also to encourage the next generation of scientists to build careers in autoimmune research.

Without that stability, promising collaborations and research programs could lose momentum.

The briefing offered a hopeful look at what is possible when Congress, NIH, researchers, clinicians, advocates, patients, and families work together.

OADR is already helping create a more coordinated approach to autoimmune research. Continued federal support can build on that progress, strengthen the research workforce, shorten the path to diagnosis, accelerate new treatments, and move us closer to cures for millions of people living with autoimmune disease.

Progress to Date