March is Autoimmune Awareness Month, and News 12 is spotlighting a doctor at the Yale School of Medicine who is making a major advance in fighting lupus.

Lupus in an autiommune disease that tends to affect women more then men and is frequently misunderstood.

"I think people who have inflammatory disorders without significant external manifestations often are misunderstood because they actually are dealing with a significant amount of pain and inflammation that others may not recognize," says Dr. Fotios Koumpouras, the director of the lupus program at Yale School of Medicine.

A new treatment therapy called CAR - T Therapy shows significant improvements in patients with lupus.

"So this is where we take patients cells out of their body, and we engineer their cells to target those other cells in their body that are producing autoimmune proteins and autoimmune and autoimmunity," says Koumpouras. "The future is bright. It offers potentially a drug free remission for patients with lupus and other autoimmune diseases."