Glasgow
MATURA consortium
The RACE team are members of the MATURA (MAximising Theraputic Utility for Rheumatoid Arthritis) consortium, a nationwide group of academics, clinical consultants and industry which aims to identify which patients will respond best to which drugs.
With the help of patients, MATURA researchers are working to identify what are called ‘treatment response predictors’. These are particular markers within a person’s genetic makeup that suggest that particular drug treatments will work better than others for them. The research process is known as ‘stratified medicine’ and its aim is to make treating the right person at the right time with the right drug a reality.
More details can be found at http://www.matura.whri.qmul.ac.uk
STRAP study
The STRAP (Stratification of Biologic Therapies for RA by Pathobiology) study is investigating 3 biological therapies. Currently there is no way to predict which patient who fails to respond positively to conventional disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) will respond to each one of these biologic therapies and these drugs are prescribed on a trial-and-error basis. This study is investigating whether the most effective drug for a specific patient can be identified by examining the joint tissue.
This project is currently recruiting volunteers with rheumatoid arthritis at sites throughout the UK. More information can be found at http://www.matura-mrc.whri.qmul.ac.uk