How can scientists improve the well-being of patients with lupus?

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 biology.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Professor George C. Tsokos, a rheumatologist at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the US. Alongside treating patients with lupus, he is uncovering the molecular mechanisms that cause the disease in order to find new treatments.

• This resource also contains an interview with George and offers an insight into careers in lupus research. If your students have questions for George, they can send them to him online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). George will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on George’s research and challenges them to explain the concepts of autoimmunity through a cartoon strip.

• The accompanying PowerPoint reiterates the key points in the article.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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