Because so much is still unknown about RA – what causes it, why it affects people differently, how to cure it – and because research is underfunded (see Table 1), the ACR Research and Education Foundation (REF) launched “Within Our Reach: Finding a Cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis.”
“Within Our Reach” is a multi-year fundraising campaign seeking to advance rheumatologic research by supporting RA research not normally funded by the National Institutes of Health or other peer-reviewed funding sources. Please join us in congratulating the first round of “Within Our Reach” RA grant recipients, who began their funding term in July.
- Paul Anderson, MD, PhD, K. Frank Austen professor of medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, “Post-transcriptional Regulation of TNF alpha Production”
- Joan M. Bathon, MD, professor of medicine, Johns Hopkins Arthritis Center, “Rheumatoid Arthritis and Body Composition”
- S. Louis Bridges, Jr., MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine and microbiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, “Genetics and Ethic Differences in C-Reactive Protein as a Biomarker of Radiographic Severity in Rheumatoid Arthritis”
- Robert H. Carter, MD, professor of medicine and microbiology, director, division clinical immunology and rheumatology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, “Autoantigen-specific B cells in Rheumatoid Arthritis”
- Gary S. Firestein, MD, professor of medicine, chief of rheumatology, allergy, and immunology, director, UCSD Clinical Investigation Institute, University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, “Neural Regulation of Synovial Inflammation”
- Richard A. Flavell, PhD, sterling professor and chair, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University School of Medicine, “Regulation of T-cell Function in Collagen-induced Arthritis by IL-10”
- Gary Gilkeson, MD, professor of medicine and vice chair for research, Medical University of South Carolina, “Role of Sphingosine Kinase I in Inflammatory Arthritis”
- Joseph Holoshitz, MD, associate professor of internal medicine medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, “Functional Characterization of the Rheumatoid Arthritis Shared Epitope Binding Receptor”
- David M. Lee, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, “IgG Glycosylation and Rheumatoid Arthritis”
- Elizabeth D. Mellins, MD, associate professor, Stanford University School of Medicine, “MHC Association in Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Novel Hypothesis”
- John D. Mountz, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, “Novel IL-17 Induced Germinal Center Formation and Arthritis-inducing Autoantibodies”
- Harold E. Paulus, MD, professor emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles, “Joint MRI to Validate Clinical Remission Criteria in Early Rheumatoid Arthritis”
- Antony Rosen, MD, Mary Betty Stevens professor of medicine, professor of cell biology and pathology, director, division of rheumatology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, “Anti-PADI4 Immune Responses in Rheumatoid Arthritis: Markers of Disease Propagation”
- Cornelia M. Weyand, MD, PhD, David Lowance professor of medicine, director, Lowance Center for Human Immunology, Emory University, “Defects of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Function in Rheumatoid Arthritis”
- Edward Yelin, PhD, professor of medicine and health policy, University of California, San Francisco, “Disparities in Healthcare Utilization and Outcomes in Rheumatoid Arthritis”
Complete information about “Within Our Reach,” current research, and future research can be found online at www.WithinOurReach.info.