University of Queensland researchers are working towards a cure for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a debilitating condition which affects one in every 100 people.
In RA, the immune system inappropriately attacks joints as if they were made of foreign proteins, eating away at the cartilage and damaging the underlying bone.
Researchers in the University's Centre for Immunology and Cancer Research at Princess Alexandra Hospital believe that although a cure for RA may be several years away, they are making excellent progress.
"We are encouraged by the positive results we are getting," Deputy-Director of the Centre Dr Ranjeny Thomas said.
"We still don't know enough about autoimmune diseases and a considerable research effort and expenditure will be required to expand our knowledge."
Dr Thomas was recently awarded a major research prize by the Australian Rheumatism Association - the prestigious and rarely awarded Parr Prize - for her outstanding contribution to research in the field of rheumatology.
RA affects three females to every one male contracting the condition.
Symptoms include pain, swelling of joints, and later deformity and loss of function in hands, knees and other joints.
"Most auto-immune diseases have their onset when people are aged in their 20s to 40s, and they last a lifetime," Dr Thomas said.
"Although RA currently is not curable, treatment protocols have greatly advanced in the past 10 to 15 years, with many patients achieving remission on drugs."
Dr Thomas leads the Centre's Dendritic Cell Group which studies dendritic cells, potent, antigen-presenting cells with the unique capacity to prime the human immune response.
They are found in lymphoid organs, as well as non-lymphoid tissues, including the skin, joints and circulating blood. Protein is presented to the immune system by dendritic cells, which are abnormally stimulated in autoimmune diseases such as RA where the body literally attacks itself.
"Dendritic cells are the educators of the immune system, teaching the T cells to recognise problems," Dr Thomas said. "In RA the T cells fight problems that should be ignored."
She said the Parr Prize was based on a body of work over the past three years on the role of dendritic cells and was also a tribute to the dedicated University of Queensland research team.
Her laboratory focuses on understanding the biology of dendritic cells and the mechanisms they present antigen in normal individuals, those with autoimmune disease and those with cancer.
University of Western Australia-educated Dr Thomas gained her Doctor of Medicine degree at the University of Texas before joining the University of Queensland four years ago. Her work is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Arthritis Foundations of Queensland and Australia and the PAH Research Foundation.
Research group members include Dr Lois Cavanagh, Dr Kelli McDonald, Melita Chambers, Brendan O'Sullivan, Dr Greg Thomas, Simone Zehntner, Allison Pettit, Peter Manders, Ibtissan Abdul-Jabbar, Jagdish Padmanabha and Janine Richards.
For further information, contact Dr Thomas, telephone 07 3240 5365, email rthomas@medicine.pa.uq.edu.au
