Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a long-term autoimmune disorder that primarily affects joints. It typically results in warm, swollen, and painful joints. Pain and stiffness often worsen following rest. Most commonly, the wrist and hands are involved, with the same joints typically involved on both sides of the body. The disease may also affect other parts of the body, including skin, eyes, lungs, heart, nerves, and blood. This may result in a low red blood cell count, inflammation around the lungs, and inflammation around the heart. Fever and low energy may also be present. Often, symptoms come on gradually over weeks to months.
In immunology, autoimmunity is the system of immune responses of an organism against its own healthy cells, tissues and other normal body constituents. Any disease resulting from this type of immune response is termed an "autoimmune disease". Prominent examples include celiac disease, diabetes mellitus type 1, Henoch–Schönlein purpura, systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjögren syndrome, eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, Graves' disease, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, Addison's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, polymyositis, dermatomyositis, and multiple sclerosis. Autoimmune diseases are very often treated with steroids.
A cytotoxic T cell (also known as TC, cytotoxic T lymphocyte, CTL, T-killer cell, cytolytic T cell, CD8+ T-cell or killer T cell) is a T lymphocyte (a type of white blood cell) that kills cancer cells, cells that are infected by intracellular pathogens such as viruses or bacteria, or cells that are damaged in other ways.
The Crafoord Prize is an annual science prize established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord following a donation to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is awarded jointly by the Academy and the Crafoord Foundation in Lund, with the former selecting the laureates. The Prize is awarded in four categories: mathematics and astronomy, geosciences, biosciences and polyarthritis, the final one because Holger suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis in his later years.
Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) B27 is a class I surface molecule encoded by the B locus in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) on chromosome 6 and presents antigenic peptides to T cells. HLA-B27 is strongly associated with ankylosing spondylitis and other associated inflammatory diseases, such as psoriatic arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and reactive arthritis.
Sir Ravinder Nath Maini is an Indian-born British rheumatologist and academic who is an emeritus professor at Imperial College London. He led the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology.
HLA-B is a human gene that provides instructions for making a protein that plays a critical role in the immune system. HLA-B is part of a family of genes called the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) complex. The HLA complex helps the immune system distinguish the body's own proteins from proteins made by foreign invaders such as viruses and bacteria.
HLA class II histocompatibility antigen, DRB1 beta chain is a protein that in humans is encoded by the HLA-DRB1 gene. DRB1 encodes the most prevalent beta subunit of HLA-DR. DRB1 alleles, especially those encoding amino acid sequence changes at positions 11 and 13, are associated risk of rheumatoid arthritis.
HLA-DR4 (DR4) is an HLA-DR serotype that recognizes the DRB1*04 gene products. The DR4 serogroup is large and has a number of moderate frequency alleles spread over large regions of the world.
HLA-DR1 (DR1) is a HLA-DR serotype that recognizes the DRB1*01 gene products. It has been observed to be common among centenarians.
George Kollias is a Greek biologist, Member of the Academy of Athens and Professor of Physiology at the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He is renowned for providing the preclinical rationale for the development of anti-TNF therapies for rheumatoid arthritis. His research is highly cited for discovering disease pathways in animal models of chronic inflammation and autoimmunity. He is credited with the development of major national infrastructures of scientific and technological excellence in Greece.
Peter K. Gregersen is a geneticist who heads the Robert S. Boas Center for Genomics and Human Genetics at Northwell's Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, New York, and is a professor of molecular medicine at Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine. He received his MD from Columbia University in 1976.
Sir Marc Feldmann is an Australian-educated British immunologist. He is a professor at the University of Oxford and a senior research fellow at Somerville College, Oxford.
Hugh O'Neill McDevitt ForMemRS was an immunologist and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Narinder Kumar Mehra is an Indian immunologist, head of the department of transplant immunology and immunogenetics of the SRL Limited, Gurgaon. He is a former dean of research and holds the ICMR Dr. C.G. Pandit National Chair at AIIMS. An elected fellow of the International Medical Sciences Academy, The World Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and National Academy of Sciences, India, Mehra is known for his research on histocompatibility and immunogenetics. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Medical Sciences in 1992. He received the Chevalier of the National Order of Merit from François Mitterrand in 2003.
Gary S. Firestein is an American rheumatologist, professor, and founding director of the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute (ACTRI) at the University of California San Diego and Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences at University of California, San Diego.
Lars Klareskog is a Swedish physician, immunologist, and rheumatologist, known for research into the genetics of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Soumya Raychaudhuri is a professor of medicine and biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School, and an Institute Member at Broad Institute. He is the JS Coblyn and MB Brenner Distinguished Chair in Rheumatology/Immunology and a practicing rheumatologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is the director for the Center for Data Sciences at Brigham and Harvard. His research focuses on human genetics and computational genomics to understand immune-mediated diseases.
Daniel L. Kastner is an American physician and researcher specialising in the genetics of autoinflammatory disorders. He is a Distinguished Investigator at the National Institutes of Health and was the Scientific Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute between 2010 to 2021. He was awarded the 2021 Crafoord Prize for Polyarthritis for his pioneering work on autoinflammatory diseases.
Iain Blair McInnes is a Scottish rheumatologist, Vice Principal and Head of the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, Muirhead Chair of Medicine and Versus Arthritis Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Glasgow. His research has focused on inflammatory diseases, particularly rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis.
