good morning. this is news4 your sunday. hello. i am pat lawson muse. how muc do you know about scare yo derma. it's a chronic connective tissue disease generally classifieds a one of the auto immune diseases. it never goes away, but it can be tated and you can manage the symptoms. joining us now to tell us mor are tiffany justice, and sharon

fine is president of the chapter. thank you for talking to usou ab this disease many people don't know a lot about. tell us what it is bond what i just said. >> it's aiv connecte tissue disease, a patients have exce excess collagen. it's a connective tissue where you don't want it so the people that have the most severe cases, and typically women of color tll have the m severe cases, and the clagen builds up in the lungs and heart and kidneys and hands, and they will have hands that become clase bec the skin, which is actually the largest organ in the body will

become thick and dense so they can't use their hands and they will have massive organ failure. one of our board members is on a list of lung replacement because her lungs have failed. >> tiffany, you suffer from this? >> yes. >> you have some of the symptoms. what has it been>> like? do. and it's all i have known atn this point i my life. >> when were you diagnosed? >> 2002. going on 20 years, this is what -- this is all i know. >> what were the symptoms that you n iiced? >> noticed initially the skin under my armsas w changing and looked weird and i stopped being able to clo my hands and make a fis and i was seeing a

rheumatologist at the time because i had signs of lupus, and then i went to the dermatologist and it has been a journey since then. it has taken ay 20s and 30s. you can't do the things that other people your age can do trouble breathing, keeping up with the average person walking, the fatigue. >> the symptoms she is experiencing and explaining are these the most typical or are they >>severe? t's typical. i have it but i have crest, it's mited, and i presented in a similar way i had carpel tunnel syndrome, and i couldn't type and i h desk job, and my blood pressure went through the roof all of a sudde t and

doctor found that was having lung involvement, so the lobes of mygs luntarted to thicken. those are very common symptoms. especially the hands producing the thickness. >> how was thised diagnos you go to a dermatologist, raoupl rheumatologist? >> yeah, a lot of times you will go to the dermatologist and they take like a hole puncher to your skin and send that off and lab work that can b done that will send you in that direction. >> it could take up ao year or more to be diagnosed, and even though i went to a specialist it took me about a year to be diagnosed and they diagnosed me with a blood test because i

didn't present in the hands. >> how many people suffer from this? >> tiffany is having multiple autoimmune diseases. people with really severe scare derma don'tive typically long. >> it's a disease we need to learn about and we will tell you more about it right after this break. nothing says summer like a beach trip, so let's promote our summer travel deal on choicehotels.com like this:

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we are talking about scleroderma this morning, and it's an automune disease that people don't know a lot b about it affects many people. y tiffany were telling me

there are many peopl with scleroderma as there are people with ms, muscular >>strophy? yes, there are five times more patients with scleroderma than als. >> it primarily affects women? >> yes. >> and very common to affect women over 50, but from 40 on they will come down withrm sclerode at that age. tiffany had it as a youngster and that's a little rare.e it's much mor likely to hit women at an older age. >> after the age of 40. >> you mentioned earlier that women of color do suffer from this and tend to have the most severe cases? >> yes. >>o wenow why that is? >> nobody knows why that is. there's a lot of research at

georgetown unersity, and they focus on women of color and they don't know why. >>he t's no cure for scleroderma? >> right. >> but it can be managed? >> yes. ?>> how >> various medications. you will be in a lot of clinical trials.ic they basly try to make you as comfortable as you can be and try to slowhe pcess down. like i said, the's no cure or cause. >> we don't know what the cause is. >> yeah, there's a cause, yeah. >> but you can manage symptoms. that's what the doctors do. some people take a lot of medication, an tiffany takes a lot of medication and i don't, and my particular version of scleroderma, i treat it with high blood pressure medication and exercis and i am big on

organic foods and getting enough sleep and rt becauseatigue is a huge thing. >> listening to your body. >> yes, listening to your body. >> i will askou to explain this, but there's a connection tween people who have discoloration of their digits, fingers, and whose fingers are affected by the cold. >> yeah, exactly. you can have that without having scleroderma, but if you have scleroderma, your fingers or your feet and the tip of your nose, and what happens is your hands become white and purple if you get too cold. >> you get numb?

>> yes. >> you think they are just cold? >> yeah, you think they are just cold and you don't know what is going on, and it aches because once you start to get warm, the blood rushes back into your fingers. whaten is happg, it's the capillaries are narrow so people with scleroderma don't have normalri capilla in their hands and feet so the capillaries restrict the blood flow when you are cold, so if you keep the core of the body warm, your hands get warm and ao the b flow comes back it aches and you get the tingling and you are finally cfortable. >> we are talking about other symptoms again. so if we don't know what causese scleroderma, d that mean they don't know how to prevent it or whether it can be prevented? t. right. they don' there are a lot of different studies when we go to the national nference, which is in

july this year in chicago, the scientists who study scleroderma get together and present to us, the patients, all of the research they are doing, into genetics, there's a large genetic component they have decided so fae the new studies that are coming out recently that are really exciting because of better technology for parsing dna that seems promising but they don't know what causes it. >> where is the best place to go in the washington are to get more information and to get diagnosed and treated? >> to get more information i would go to the scleroderma website, scleroderma.org. there's information for patients and caregivers who spent a lot of time and energy caring for l theired ones and people

interested in research and doing research and fellowships. you can go to george washington university hospital or georgetown university hospital, or johnsopkins where there's scleroderma for adults. and a dermatology, most of the patients go to children's national. it is diagnosed and children even as young as fiv you were diagnosed by a raou dermatologist. >> yeah. >> i am glad to know you dre bothng well, and that gives us inspiration. this is great information and i didn't know a lotbout this myself so it's very informative. to get more, pple can go scleroderma.org. it's a little difficult to spell and pronounce but it's important

to knowshbout. on and tiffany, thank you both so much and we wthh you bo well. >> thank you. next, new cancer therapies for companion pets. we'll be right back. not all water is created equal.

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raou welco back. as part of channel 4's celebration month, we welcome our next guest. she's president of canine cancer therapies for companion dogs. it also applies what is learned from clinical trials involving dogs to improving therapies for people. thank you for being here. your work is very interesting, and your backgrounds also interesting. you have a background in biotechnology and scientific research and a lot of the worke you hav done has been concentrated on developing user

focused applications to meet the eds on the battlefield. how did you wind up developing cancer therapies for dogs? how did you make that l,ansition? >> when i was smal i grew up in japan and we lived with my grandfather who had cancer, and secret secret topic, a subject, and in the back of my head i thought i want to find out me about cancer. as i was growing up i didn't have the head to recognize the biological terms, but i did enjoy working with math and solving problems and was drawn to physics, and i went to a research lab which was developed into the research agency for the defense department, and there i started working on applications

to help mitary users, soldiers, but i discovered really, my amazement was, even though there's a lot of funding in theig military the rht applications were not being eoilt for soldiers on the ground so pe would go on patrol and come back and they are sharing that infortion in power point file and word files and when a unit goes in and comes back and they havcks of power point slides and drives they are handing over toew a n unit coming in, we said we need to do something about this and we talked to a lot of soldiers and figured out a way to develop a new application called tiger net, and they could use to say who has been here before, and i will take this route and what has happened along this tphaebd a neighborhood, and so they are prepared when they go on the patrol. >> are you still doing this

work? >> no. i am not. >> so you made a transition and had an interesting cancer because it was in your own esfamily? >> y. >> who is involved in your organization doing this research? >>ht rig now, the alliance is -- it's all volunteer-based and it's aiv relaty new organization. >> is this you and your lab? >> this is my pet at home, actually. after having lost several of our golden retrievers to cancer, it's devastating you lose your dog to cancer, and it's like losing a family member and you are at a loss, and you don't know who theest people to talk toare, and which vets did you go to,hould you try chemo or surgery or all of the ndabove, there are clinical trials you can enroll your dog in and how much will it cost?

you are overwhelmed. when one of my dogs had cancer, i heard about a chemical trial, and i wanted to get himnr eolled but it had closed, and there's ju so little funding available for researchers trying to cure dog's cancer. so we decided, well, maybe we can do something in this domain. >> i am talking with dr. mary ta,nd we will continue our discussion right after this. the big carriers are talking about their current 5g roll ts, but theirefforts are limited to a few pockets in select cities or trying to convince consumers that 4g is actually 5g.

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continuing our talk now with the president of the canine cancer researc alliance and you are bringing together groups that can work on the research. is there a connectingor nization that can help find cancer cures for dogs and cats? >> yes. that was sortf the training i

got where we were bringing teams together, ande so what we ar trying to emphasize, talking to cancer researchers who potentially cured drugs that they have not been able to test on people and so they can start studies, and it's very safe to try and ieef they can cure cancer with pet dogs. again, i want to emphasize, we are not doing work with laboratory dogs but we are working with pet dogs, our patients. >> your work in stem is very inspiring and you indicated you were interested in it as a girl. what is your advice to parents who have a children who interested in stem or any of the nd of work you have done in physician kwre

physics or sciences? >> i was rdingbiographies, and i would read thve books o and over again and just having -- watching orin dream about thomas edison with his lab, and i thought i wish i a lab and could do the experiments and that's something i grew up with, so i would encourage people to teach them and read books about these people with scientific and technology backgrounds and also let them follow their curiosity. curiosity, in my case, i started in optics, ahat is used in communications systems and then i started about communications systems and i did research in that domain, and i thought what is that used in, networks, and so then i moved to software research and then what isne

orks used for and it's used for applications, and application research is interesting and let's build thin applicatio for the military, and so i felt like i was following my curiosity and there was support from people around me, including my parents, to follow what ieras intted in. if you talked to my professor, he would have said follow this, work on this topic for the next 20 years and you can become the world's expert, but that was not something for me. i just had to sort of follow my curiosity and people might say i have a scattered career, but that's the way it turned out. >> and you are enjoying what you are doing? >> and it's hoped that the work you are doing with the alliance, it will help, and we know pets get cancer just as people do. >> yes, when you find out your pet has cancer, your whole world

collapses. >> it's devastating. >> yes. >> you were unable to attend our nbc 4 reception last year as part of the asian heritage montw and were not able to present this to you, so on behalf of my managers and colleagues and our many viewers that depend on companion animals, we wan to present this award to you right now. >> thank you so much. >> congratulations on the work you are doing for people who love their pets and those on the battlefield. thank you for being with us. log on to nbcwashtington.com to see some of our programs and click on community. im pat lawson muse. hope to see you again next week. this isn't just a beer.

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"news 4 today" starts now.00 6: on this sunday morning. here's wh we're following for you, staying on top of the latest developments following ia that virgin beach shooting. what we're larning about the investigation. communi groups take to the streets to stop the violence in the district. plus, maryland governor larry hogan making a decisionut ab running for president. find out if he'll challenge president trump. and welcome in on tsus day morning. thank you so much for being here with us. i'm adam tuss. >> good morning. i'm meagan fitzger id. it sunday, june 2nd, 2019, if you can believe it. the year is just flying by. >> i know. we're like fullynto -- i know it is not meteorological summer,

but it is sr.