Exclusive: ACR Convergence 2024| Focus Rheums

An official publication of the ACR and the ARP serving rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals

Articles tagged with "Clinical research"

Within Our Reach Investigators’ Meeting Brings Together Junior and Senior Investigators

Soumya Raychaudhuri, MD, PhD  |  

The Within Our Reach Investigators’ Meeting, held in San Diego in June, was an incredible gathering of researchers funded through the ACR Research and Education Foundation’s (REF’s) Within Our Reach: Finding a Cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis campaign. The focus on rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was unmistakable as investigators from around the country presented work ranging from very basic immunology to health outcomes. 

We Are All in This Together

Leslie Crofford, MD  |  

While rheumatologists in private practice face daily concerns regarding reimbursements and certifications, the Research and Education Foundation (REF) is working behind the scenes to help improve patients’ lives. Through its balanced core awards and grants portfolio, the REF supports education, training, and career development for the future academic workforce.

In America’s Recession, the REF Remains Strong

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According to a survey conducted in October 2008 by the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers, three-quarters of the region’s leading foundations and corporate giving programs suffered a decline in assets because of plummeting returns on investments over 2008. About one-third of the respondents said they reduced grant budgets from 2007 to 2008, and about half of the organizations said they plan to award fewer grants in 2009.

What a Bold Vision and Dedication Can Achieve

Leslie Crofford, MD  |  

Over the past two years, you have heard us talking a lot about Within Our Reach: Finding a Cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis, the Research and Education Foundation (REF) campaign to raise and award funds for investigator-initiated research to find a cure for rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Enact Change in RA

David S. Pisetsky, MD, PhD  |  

Future advances could be challenged by structural barriers within the specialty

Bridge Funding Award Keeps Researcher on the Path to Her Passion

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On June 25, 2008, the American College of Rheumatology Research and Education Foundation received a letter from Sujata Sarkar, MD, one of the first recipients of the ACR REF/Arthritis Foundation Bridge Funding Award. In that letter Dr. Sarkar wrote, “I am very thankful to you … This award has come to me at a very crucial and vulnerable time in my academic career as a junior researcher.” The crucial and vulnerable time to which Dr. Sarkar refers is the time when she would need to search for alternative funding to pay for her rheumatology research career—or leave academia altogether.

A Ghost Appears

David A. Fox, MD  |  

We need to address the specter of ghostwriting in medical research

New Investigators Struggle to Find the Path to Independence

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While practicing rheumatologists face budgetary cuts in Medicare reimbursement, new investigators are facing a challenge of their own. Federal budget cuts and other vanishing funding sources are making it extremely difficult to support their research activities. “Over the past several years, sources of funding for these individuals have become increasingly restricted, with the Arthritis Foundation’s Arthritis Investigator award no longer available and the mentored Career Development Awards (K08 and K23) from the NIH affected by the federal budgetary constraints,” remarks ACR Research and Education Foundation (REF) President Leslie Crofford, MD.