[IRAS Project No. 330277]
Status: In set-up
The SQUEEZE consortium aims to address how biomarkers can be used to optimize disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). RA is a chronic immune-mediated disease with enormous health-related quality of life and socioeconomic impact. Through nine dedicated work packages SQUEEZE integrates to validate clinical, laboratory, molecular, digital and behavioural biomarkers to enable the recognition of patients with high likelihood of response to treatment and the selection of the drug with highest chance of benefit for an individual patient; and as such improve efficacy and safety of existing therapies (by squeezing the most out of existing drugs) in synergy with other EU-wide activities.
The BioTest Study, sponsored by QMUL and coordinated by EMR is an observation study whereby patients will undergo a biopsy of one of their swollen joints. The aim is to create a biomedical resource to help identify and classify the cells in diseased tissue taken from the swollen joints of patients with RA. We will use this information, along with clinical data collected from visits to the hospital to understand better why the presence or absence of specific cells and molecules (“prevalent synovial pathways”) may be responsible for why some people respond or don’t respond to different drugs.
We aim to recruit approximately 75 patients. Synovial tissue and blood samples will be collected.
Consortiums we are part of:
Supported by NIHR Barts Biomedical Research Centre