Research Fellow (Molecular Rheumatology)

Molecular Rheumatology, TCD (https://rheumatologytcd.com) and the Centre for Arthritis and Rheumatic Diseases, SVUH, UCD (https://arthritissvuh.com/) are seeking to appoint 2 Post-Doctoral Fellows in a dynamic research environment to perform research focused on examining the molecular pathways that govern immune-stromal cell interactions in autoimmune diseases.

Project Summary: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic progressive inflammatory autoimmune disease characterised primarily by joint damage and disability, although it may also be associated with vasculitis and lung and heart disease. In the last two decades, targeted biotherapeutics have become highly successful in the treatment of RA with significantly improved outcomes. Despite this, a significant proportion of patients have sub-optimal responses, no response or suffer adverse events limiting the therapeutic impact. Currently we cannot predict who will develop RA, or the optimal time for treatment. Recent research has focused on ‘individuals at-risk’ (IAR) of RA, who are positive for rheumatoid factor and/or anti-citrullinated protein antibodies but who have not developed clinical signs of arthritis, who may provide important clues in understanding the evolution of RA. Furthermore, recent studies have shown that checkpoint inhibitors which activate immune cells to attack cancer cells, can also result in uncontrolled immune responses leading to check-point inhibitor induced arthritis. Therefore, this project will perform detailed mechanistic studies of synovial tissue and cells from ‘IAR’, checkpoint-inhibitor ‘IAR’ and established RA to define (i) immune cell function, (ii) transcriptional regulation and (iii) epigenetics through the evolution of RA. Furthermore, in collaboration with industry partners we will test potential pipeline drugs in our ex vivo 2D/3D synovial tissue models, to identify new drug candidates for the treatment of RA at the earliest stages, including potential prevention of disease. Furthermore, it will give the appointed post-docs significant insight into drug development in ‘pre-clinical proof of concept studies’ in the industry setting. The overall goal of these projects is to enable selection of the correct treatment for specific patients (precision medicine) from the outset based on a sound, scientific rationale, which in turn will impact significantly on patient care, efficiency and cost effectiveness in our healthcare system.

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