Charlotte Hurabielle Claverie, MD, PhD, Receives 2025 Irene Perstein Award to Investigate Disease Activity in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Charlotte Hurabielle Claverie, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Division of Rheumatology, has received a 2025 Irene Perstein Award in recognition of her research on systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) – a complex autoimmune disease that can have severe and unpredictable effects, including in young patients.

The Perstein Award will support her study, Unveiling the Humoral and Molecular Signatures of SLE Flares and Resolution, which aims to identify autoantibodies associated with disease flares and remission. Dr. Hurabielle Claverie will apply a phage display system to a large, longitudinal cohort of patients and use single-cell profiling to map immune cell states and molecular pathways that drive SLE activity.

“Many of the patients I follow suffer from unpredictable flares and complications, even when they’re adherent to treatment,” she said. “These experiences at the bedside are what drive my scientific questions.”

Dr. Hurabielle Claverie’s interest in autoimmune disease began during her dermatology training in France and deepened during her rheumatology training in the United States. Her first rheumatology patient at UCSF had end-stage renal disease caused by lupus that had otherwise gone undetected – an experience that shaped her clinical and research focus.

She is particularly interested in understanding why some patients experience severe disease activity despite aggressive treatment, while others recover quickly. Her goal is to uncover the drivers of disease flares, remission, and specific organ involvement, with the ultimate aim of identifying predictive biomarkers and therapeutic targets to advance personalized treatment for lupus.

By integrating cutting-edge technologies with richly annotated patient cohorts, Dr. Hurabielle Claverie hopes her work will help transform how SLE is diagnosed, monitored, and treated. She credits the Perstein Award with providing critical support and encouragement as she builds her career as a translational investigator.

“As researchers, we often become deeply immersed in our work, uncertain at times whether the significance we see in our questions resonates beyond our immediate circles,” she said. “Receiving the Irene Perstein Award is a meaningful affirmation from UCSF’s esteemed research community that this works matters – not just to me, but to the broader mission of advancing human health.”

Established in 2007 through a bequest from Irene Holmes Perstein, the Irene Perstein Award honors exceptional junior women scientists in the UCSF School of Medicine. Two other UCSF faculty members – Kayla Karvonen, MD, MAS, and Marilyn Thomas, PhD, MPH – are also 2025 recipients of the award.