Oxford scientists awarded major grants for research into autoimmune diseases and osteoarthritis
SCIENTISTS in Oxford University have been awarded a two major grants totalling nearly £200,000 by leading medical research charity the Arthritis Research Campaign for their work into autoimmune diseases, and osteoarthritis.
Professor Don Mason, Director of the MRC Cellular Immunology Unit at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, and his team, will be working on ways of controlling arthritic disease by blocking the mechanism that cause the body's immune system to attack itself.
Autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and insulin-dependent diabetes are caused when the body's immune system – designed to ward off infection – instead attacks itself.
Successful drug therapies block this process, reducing or even preventing inflammation and swelling in the joints.
"The immune system, which exists to protect us from infections, has developed powerful processes to kill invading bacteria and viruses," explained Professor Mason. "Because these killing processes are so powerful, mechanisms exist to regulate them. Research over recent years strongly suggests that diseases like rheumatoid arthritis occur because these regulatory mechanisms fail, with the result that the body makes an attack on its own tissues.
"Several factors that promote the development of these protective mechanisms have now been identified, and what we aim to do over the next three years is to investigate whether these factors can be used in a model system to control an experimental arthritic disease. If it's successful this could lead to a new drug treatment being developed."
The other grant of £83,589 was awarded to Professor Jill Urban, Senior ARC Research Fellow, based in the physiology labs, for her work on the loss of a molecule called aggrecan in cartilage, which leads to osteoarthritis.
The ARC raised almost £23m from public donations in the past 12 months to fund research into arthritis and all forms of rheumatic disease.
