Oxford scientist awarded major grant for arthritis research
A leading Oxford geneticist, at the forefront of tracking down the genes responsible for an incurable rheumatic disease, has been given a major cash boost of more than half a million pounds.
Dr Matthew Brown of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Headington, has been awarded a five-year Senior Research Fellowship of £594,600 by medical research charity the Arthritis Research Campaign. Dr Brown and his colleagues already have grants of almost £1m from the charity to fund their work.
The fellowship will enable him to continue his work in establishing the genetic basis for ankylosing spondylitis, which affects around 50,000 people in the UK, mainly young men. It leads to inflammation and severe stiffness in the spine, causing pain, tiredness and discomfort.
"Ankylosing spondylitis runs strongly in families, and genes are very important in determining who in the community develops the condition, and if they develop it, how severely they are affected," explained Dr Brown. "Preliminary studies by my group have identified several areas of different chromosomes which are very likely to contain genes involved in the disease.
"This fellowship aims to build on the work to identify the actual gene lying in these areas which are involved in the disease, and which variants of these genes are important in ankylosing spondylitis."
The ultimate aim of Dr Brown's work is to develop better ways of treating and diagnosing the condition, and perhaps preventing it developing in people identified to be at genetic risk.
· Dr Gill Urban, based at the University of Oxford's department of physiology, has been awarded a two-year-grant of £57,000 from the ARC to investigate whether the leakage of acidic by-products of muscles into intervertebral discs could be a source of back pain.
