Immune cell types driving rheumatoid arthritis

Summary

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease of unknown cause. Our lack of understanding of RA disease mechanisms results in a trial and error in the prescription of drugs with 30% of patients failing to respond. Researchers from the University of Manchester have recently identified new immune cells in the blood of patients with RA, which are much less frequent in the blood of healthy volunteers.

We now need to verify if these findings are true by trying to identify these new immune cells in 30 more patients with RA. These new cell types could be causing RA and would therefore be good treatment targets. If we know the characteristics of these cells, new treatments could aim at destroying them to cure RA.