AF Howley Prize Recipient: Profile of Vision and Focus
The Howley Prize recognizes those researchers whose contributions during the previous five years have represented a significant advance in the understanding, treatment, or prevention of arthritis and rheumatic diseases.
Gary S. Firestein, MD, has been involved in arthritis research for several years. With numerous studies and countless papers and presentations under his belt, he remains philosophical and modest about his accomplishments, including being named the 2006 Lee C. Howley Sr. Prize for Research in Arthritis recipient. “I’m enormously gratified and honored by this recognition. But one doesn’t go into this line of research to win awards,” he says. “Our touchstone over the years is that we were—and are—trying to improve patients’ lives.”
Over the years, Dr. Firestein’s research efforts have focused on the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis. His laboratory helped define the synovial cytokine profile of RA and demonstrated the dominance of macrophage and fibroblast products as opposed to the expected T-cell cytokines. These studies contributed to the development of the highly effective anti-TNF approaches in RA. Recently, Dr. Firestein focused his attention on synoviocyte transformation in RA as a mechanism of joint destruction. His group was the first to describe somatic mutations in the p53 tumor suppressor genes in the RA synovium. The mutations were subsequently demonstrated to be dominant negative and increase the cartilage invasiveness of these cells. Dr. Firestein’s laboratory has also worked extensively on metalloproteinase and cytokine gene regulation in synoviocytes by MAP kinases and NF-kb as well as on novel gene therapy approaches to RA.
