$ 3.3M NIH funding for research of biomarkers in Scleroderma

NEW YORK - Researchers at four universities led by Boston University School of Medicine will use $ 3.3 million guaranteed over five years to establish basic services to conduct research focusing on biomarkers for systemic sclerosis (SSc), also known as scleroderma, a rare and complex rheumatic disease that can cause disfigurement and vascular diseases in many organs.

Funded by the 'National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal System Diseases of the Skin and the project will involve researchers SSc Systemic Sclerosis schools University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Dartmouth Medical School, as well as the BU School of Medicine.

The program's goal is to address one of the impediments to the development of treatments for the disease - the difficulty in predicting its onset or progression of its major complications such as fibrotic skin disease, pulmonary hypertension and interstitial lung disease.

The biomarkers that allow doctors to recognize these complications at an early stage may allow the development of more targeted therapies, and identify patients who are at high risk in order to 'enlist' in therapeutic trials.

"This is reversing the games to ensure research in scleroderma." said in a statement last week's John Varga, professor of medicine and dermatology at Northwestern University. "They potrebero greatly accelerate research in the understanding of fibrosis and its causes, and make it possible to move toward personalized medicine for this complex disease."

Northwestern will be the core of proteomics research project, researchers and UPMC will create a core for the lung disease.

The group of UPMC will generate a series of micro lung tissue to provide a resource to researchers in the SSc, which will direct screening, with a high level of protein and mRNA in diseases and tissues of control, and will provide complete clinical information about the patients, thus allowing micro series at the base of related studies.

"Bolstered by a very large clinical population in SSc, we propose a careful clinical evaluation, combined with effective molecular approach to identify the mononuclear cells of the skin, serum and peripheral blood biomarkers of disease," said the manager of research and the BUSM Professor Robert Lafyatis in an earlier statement.

Source:

GenomeWeb News
December 5, 2011
http://www.genomeweb.com/nih-funding-33m-biomarker-research-scleroderma