King's College team awarded major grant for arthritis research
A team of doctors at King's College London have been awarded a major grant of almost £130,000 from the Arthritis Research Campaign to help them track down the genetic causes of the crippling condition of rheumatoid arthritis.
Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory disease affecting around 600,000 people in the UK in which the body's immune system attacks the joints leading to pain, stiffness and intense fatigue.
The team at Guys, King's and St Thomas's Hospital School of Medicine, which has been working on the genetics of rheumatoid arthritis for many years, has discovered a new region of DNA that is linked and associated with the disease.
The new three-year grant from the medical research charity the ARC will enable them to confirm their initial findings.
"Genetics is an important factor in determining who will or will not develop rheumatic arthritis," explained Dr Jerry Lanchbury, reader in molecular immunogenetics at the Guy's, King's and St Thomas's medical school.
"Recent advances in this field mean that some of the differences between people, which increase their risk of developing RA, can be determined. We have evidence of differences in a new region of DNA (the hereditary material) which appear to predict part of the risk of developing RA."
If their work is successful, it may also provide an additional genetic test, which will help predict who is at risk of developing RA.
Guy's King's and St Thomas's Hospitals school of medicine is a leading centre for arthritis research, and is a major beneficiary of ARC funding, which currently stands at almost £4m.
