Arthritis research in the Republic has received a significant boost with the allocation of £450,000 by the Health Research Board and the Arthritis Foundation of Ireland.
According to HRB chairman Prof Michael Murphy, this joint initiative demonstrates the benefits of working in partnership with a patient organisation, in an effort to find effective treatments for such a debilitating disease.
The funding will support four new research projects - two of which will be based in St Vincent's Hospital Department of Rheumatology, which is achieving an international reputation for arthritis research. Dr Evelyn Murphy and Prof Barry Bresnihan will investigate the role of a protein called NURR1 in inflammatory arthritis. Dr Murphy has previously shown this protein plays an important role in chronic joint inflammation but its exact function is not understood.
Dr Patrick Costello and Dr Oliver FitzGerald, also from St Vincent's Hospital, will focus on psoriatic arthritis, a form of arthritis associated with the skin disease psoriasis, and on the role of "T cells". This form is a common cause of joint damage and accounts for up to 15 per cent of patients attending early arthritis clinics.
Understanding how arthritis is caused at a molecular level will be the subject of work by a team led by Prof Luke O'Neill of Trinity College in collaboration with Dr Eoin Casey and Prof Dermot Kelleher of St James's Hospital, Dublin. Prof O'Neill has already identified a number of novel genes and proteins implicated in rheumatoid arthritis. They are part of what is known as the interleukin-1 system, which is central to inflammation.
Determining the exact genetic make-up (through genomics) and the detail of protein structure of these, it is hoped, will deliver new treatments. Meanwhile, scientists and clinicians in Cork will investigate how genetics influences an individual's response to different drugs used in arthritis treatment.
Prof Fergal O'Gara and Ms Claire Adams from UCC will work with consultant rheumatologist Dr Michael Molloy of Cork University Hospital on a project which aims to improve the efficacy of new therapeutic agents by identifying patients most susceptible to treatments. It will concentrate on what is known as anti-TNFAlpha therapy and help to select those patients most suitable for this type of treatment.