Liverpool doctors to study role of "natural killer cells" in rheumatoid arthritis
Doctors in Liverpool have been awarded a major grant of £121,800 from the Arthritis Research Campaign (ARC) to find out more about the role of so-called "natural-killers cells" in rheumatoid arthritis.
More than 600,000 people suffer from the crippling condition of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a serious, auto-immune, inflammatory disease which leads to swelling and inflammation in the joints and can damage the internal organs.
Now a team of researchers based at the recently opened laboratories at University Hospital Aintree are to spend the next three years studying the role of a certain type of white blood cell known as the natural killer cell in the immune system.
"The immune system is meant to protect our body from infection and cancer. However, it turns against our own joints in rheumatoid arthritis, and leads to deformity, destruction and disability," explained Dr Laszlo Pazmany, lecturer in rheumatology at the University of Liverpool Academic Rheumatology Unit, at University Hospital Aintree.
"The reason why this occurs is not understood. Recent studies have shown that a certain type of white blood cell - the natural killer (NK) cell - can play an important role in regulating various functions of the immune system and can even play a role in RA-like arthritis in animals. Their role in human disease is not known."
The Liverpool team, led by Dr Robert Moots, is the newest University Rheumatology Unit in the UK and is already making a mark in research. They have recently found large numbers of NK cells in inflamed joints of patients with RA, and observed that they were strikingly different from normal NK cells.
"Our work aims to study the role these NK cells could play in RA and help us understand better how the disease might be caused," added Dr Pazmany. "This in turn may lead to new and better treatments."
"We are very excited with this opportunity to set up this research in Liverpool," says Dr Moots. "We are very fortunate to have brand new laboratories and facilities for seeing patients for research at the Clinical Sciences Centre. Both University Hospital Aintree and the University of Liverpool are strongly backing this development and we are thrilled that the ARC are also supporting us."
