Released November 1999
Arthritis research in Manchester given major cash boost
Research into arthritis in Manchester has been given a major cash boost of nearly £400,000 from leading medical research charity the Arthritis Research Campaign.
Four project grants have been awarded to four teams looking into the causes of chronic lower back pain, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and a genetic disease called multiple epiphyseal dysplasia.
- A two-year £73,855 grant to a team led by Dr Robert Cooper and Professor Jackie Oldham at Hope Hospital in Salford and the Centre for Rehabilitation Science at the University of Manchester. They are hoping to establish whether chronic lower back pain and the accompanying weakness in the paraspinal musles is the result of a lack of a certain type of muscle fibre. Paraspinal muscles play a crucial role in stabilising the lumbar spine, and protect it from damage, but it has been shown that in people with lower back pain have muscles which are weak and tire easily. The reasons for this are currently unknown.
- A two-year £107,544 grant to Professor Alan Silman, Director of the Epidemiology Unit at Manchester University and colleagues at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, to find and identify the genes that cause lupus, a rheumatic disease which affects 15,000 people in the UK, mainly young women. The team is collaborating with scientists in Trinidad, to investigate the reasons for the high incidence of lupus in Afro-Caribbean and Afro-American people.
- A three-year £100,526 grant to Dr Eric Bell of the University of Manchester and colleagues at the University of Glasgow to investigate the role of a white blood cell called the CD4 lymphocyte in rheumatoid arthritis. Normally the CD4 T cells protect the body and fight infections, but in rheumatoid they attack the body by mistake. Dr Bell's team will find how the cells induce inflammation in the joints. Once this has been established, drugs can be designed to stop this happening, and break the chain of events that leads to rheumatoid arthritis.
- A three-year £107,651 grant to Dr Mike Briggs in the school of biological sciences at the University of Manchester, to use cutting edge genetic techniques to study the genetic and molecular basis of multiple epiphyseal dysplasia (dwarfism). MED leads to osteoarthritis in young people, and often results in them having to undergo many joint replacement operations in early adult life.
The Arthritis Research Campaign last year raised almost £23m from public donations to fund research into arthritis and all 200 forms of rheumatic disease, in centres throughout the UK.
