The UK MSK TRC is a collaboration between the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and the charity Arthritis UK, bringing together the expertise in musculoskeletal research of Arthritis UK with NIHR infrastructure, including Biomedical Research Centres (BRC), Clinical Research Facilities (CRF), and the Research Delivery Network (RDN).
This round, five projects were awarded funding, to be led by Cambridge, Glasgow, Leeds, Newcastle and Oxford. In addition to their scientific content, each applicant demonstrated strong alignment with UK MSK TRC workstreams and embedded inclusive research and PPIE principles. Lifecourse approaches were prominent, which is a key strategic priority for TRC research.
The funding initiative was designed to support early-stage projects that lay the groundwork for multi-centre, scalable national studies aligned with TRC scientific and methodology workstreams.
Two theme members of the Musculoskeletal Disease and Inflammation Medicine Research Theme were among those awarded funding in this inaugural round:
Dr James Stanway, Clinical Lecturer in the Musculoskeletal, Inflammation and Immunity Theme at Newcastle University, has been awarded over almost £28,000 to lead a collaborative starter project with colleagues Dr Amy Anderson, Dr Arthur Pratt, Prof John Isaacs and Dr Sebastien Viatte from Manchester and Prof Kulveer Mankia from Leeds. His study, T cell autoreactivity in the at-risk phase of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), will explore immune mechanisms that precede the onset of RA, aiming to identify novel pathways for early intervention.
He said: "It has been recognised for some time that the development of RA is preceded by an ‘at-risk’ phase. For patients, this could mean an opportunity to intervene before arthritis even develops, giving the best opportunity for long term disease control or even disease prevention. For researchers, the at-risk phase is an opportunity to study the earliest stages of immune dysregulation in RA and understand what leads to RA onset. We hope to develop tests that measure this immune dysregulation and allow us to predict who is at highest risk of developing RA and may, in the future, benefit from a course of preventative therapy. By collaborating with Leeds and Manchester through the NIHR TRC pump priming scheme, we will apply what we have learnt through our work in the BRC-supported Northeast Early Arthritis Cohort, to at-risk individuals within the Leeds CCP cohort. In parallel, we plan to test a sequencing based approach to analyse the rare cells we think are critical to RA development at the highest resolution possible. We hope that our findings will support funding for a larger translational research program focussed on at-risk individuals."
Dr Josh Bennett, NIHR Clinical Lecturer at Newcastle University and Paediatric Rheumatology Registrar within the Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust, contributed as a co-applicant to a collaborative grant worth £30,000 that is led by Dr Eve Smith (Glasgow University). By recruiting affected children and young people across three UK sites, this project will investigate centralised pain mechanisms in Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) through functional MRI scans of the brain.
Dr Bennett said: “This project offers an exciting opportunity for us to explore why some patients with JIA struggle with persistent pain even when their joint inflammation has improved. Gaining a better understanding of changes within the brain that are associated with persistent pain should help us with early identification of at-risk individuals and, eventually, to develop targeted treatments.”
Dr Arthur Pratt, Co-Lead for the NIHR Newcastle BRC Musculoskeletal and Inflammation Medicine Theme and MSK TRC Clinical Academic Lead, said, “our Theme contributes £4,000 per year to this competition, but news of these awards is much more than a good return on our investment. The seed funding initiative provides an excellent platform for early career researchers to develop and lead collaborative projects nationally that are “more than the sum of their parts,” and it’s really great to see both James and Josh benefitting from this opportunity.”