This Whole Deal PikLZ Scientist card collectible featuring Bijijoo art will help offset future early stage innovative research in the Napier Lab.

Dr. Napier's work on the rare disease Blau syndrome caught PikLZ attention for the very first scientist PikLZ card collectibles.

Dr. Napier's lab is focused on understanding the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases with a hope of identifying drug targets for future therapies. For example, her team is moving us closer to unlocking the role of how the NOD2 gene affects immunity. Because mutations in the NOD2 gene have been shown to track to all sorts of inflammatory syndromes (e.g., Crohn's, psoriatic arthritis, graft vs. host disease, uveitis, rheum arthritis, Yao syndrome, etc.,) supporting her work on the rare disease Blau Syndrome could have additional big impacts on many horrible diseases.

One example to show how funding rare disease research can lead to big solves in many other more prevalent diseases is the rare disease CAPS (Cryopyrin-associated periodic syndrome) Like Blau Syndrome, CAPS is caused by a single DNA mutation. In the case of CAPS the single DNA mutation is in a protein called NLRP3 (a protein similar to NOD2.) Research on CAPS discovered this horrible disease was caused by overproduction of a protein called IL-1b that is important in cell to cell communication. IL-1b was a protein of little interest to the research community at the time. However, after the CAPS research results, scientists quickly developed a drug to target IL-1b. That drug is now used to treat LOTS of horrible diseases (e.g., Gout, rheumatoid arthritis, etc.) that were seemingly unrelated to CAPS.

Let's support Dr. Napier's work by providing the Napier Lab with some early innovation funding that is "stuck in a pickle."