Inflammation is a critical process in fighting infection. However, if uncontrolled, it can contribute to the development of autoimmune disease, including inflammatory forms of arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which causes joint destruction and disability. Recent therapies have advanced the treatment of RA, however a significant percentage of patients have small responses, no response and suffer adverse events. Currently, it is impossible to predict, (i) who will develop RA, (ii) once diagnosed which patients will develop more severe disease, and (iii) which patients will respond to a specific treatment. If patients don’t get the right therapy from the beginning it will have significant impact on their quality of like and long-term outcome. Therefore there is need to (i) be able to identify early disease, (ii) give the right treatment from the onset of disease and (iii) find new therapies for patients that don’t respond to current therapies.
This project examines a specific type of immune cell ‘the monocyte’ which circulates in the blood and significantly contributes to the inflammatory response in patients with RA. Specifically, we aim to (i) identify differences in the phenotype and function of this immune cell in RA compared to Healthy Controls and (ii) examine does this differ in patients that respond to therapy vs those that do not respond to therapy. This approach will assist in the identification of new disease markers and drug candidates for the treatment of patients at different stages of RA progression and possibly other autoimmune diseases.
