Oxford doctors awarded second major grant to help genetic research into incurable disease
Doctors at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Headington, Oxford, have been awarded a project grant of £54,927 by leading medical research charity The Arthritis and Rheumatism Council, to help them track down the genes responsible for causing a little-known rheumatic disease.
Ankylosing spondylitis is an incurable condition which affects 115,000 people in the UK, mainly young men, and causes pain, stiffness and often a stooped, bent back. It can sometimes lead to fusion of the joints in the spine and pelvis. No-one knows what causes AS.
But the team at the Nuffield's Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, headed by Dr Paul Wordsworth, Clinical Reader in Rheumatology, are confident that their work will establish which genes are responsible for causing the disease. This could then lead ultimately to swifter diagnosis, and better treatments.
The team are currently trying to recruit around 1,000 families in the UK to take part in genetic studies, and the ARC grant will go towards funding a full-time research nurse over two years who will help with recruitment.
"Our strategy is to collect large numbers of families with two or more affected siblings with ankylosing spondylitis, and to identify regions of chromosomes thought to contain relevant genes, by using a large number of genetic markers analysed on the most up-to-date genetic machinery," explained Dr Wordsworth, who is also involved in similar genetic investigations into another serious rheumatic disease, rheumatoid arthritis.
"Our initial studies in 120 sibling pairs have given us hope that we may be on the trail of a number of important genes. The research nurse will work in close collaboration with individual clinics, in order to recruit people who are affected, to arrange for them to be clinically assessed, bled, and the samples safely transported to the lab here in Oxford."
Earlier this year the ARC awarded Dr Wordsworth's colleague, Dr Matthew Brown, a £305,794 three-year Clinical Scientist Fellowship, for his work into the genetics of AS.
