First, treatment of (NZBxNZW) F1 lupus prone mice with hCDR1, but not with the vehicle or the control (scrambled) peptide, resulted in significant down regulation of IFN-α gene expression (Figure 1A) and IFN-α sera levels (Figure 1B) which correlated to the serological and clinical beneficial effects of hCDR1 in this model (Table 1, Figure 2). Here, IFNA1 is linked to systemic lupus erythematosus.