Nottingham doctors awarded major grant by arthritis charity
DOCTORS in Nottingham have been awarded a grant of £86,192 by leading medical research charity the Arthritis Research Campaign for their important on-going work into the causes of a common arthritic disorder.
The rheumatology unit at the City Hospital has an established track record in clinical studies of osteoarthritis, including of the hip.
Work carried out by Professor Michael Doherty and Dr Peter Lanyon has shown that there is a strong genetic component to osteoarthritis of the hip, ie that genes inherited from our parents play a part in the development of the disease.
Patients with osteoarthritis of the hip in Nottingham are playing a major part in the research by providing the DNA samples used in the studies. The team at the City Hospital identified a large number of families and single people in Nottingham with hip osteoarthritis, and another group of healthy people.
The latest ARC grant will fund a research nurse to take blood from these people taking part. The DNA will be extracted from the blood samples, and stored in the ARC's Repository in Manchester.
"It will be used in future studies to determine the genes that predispose to hip osteoarthritis," explained Dr Lanyon. "Understanding what causes osteoarthritis to develop might lead to better strategies to prevent or treat this common, painful problem."
The Arthritis Research Campaign is the fifth biggest medical research charity in the UK, and last year raised almost £23m to fund research into the causes of and cure for arthritis and all forms of rheumatic disease.
