Overview

Significant unmet need

Many autoimmune diseases share common inflammatory pathways, comorbidity risks, and even responses to disease-modifying therapies. Although more than 25 million people in the U.S. are affected by these chronic diseases, many remain undertreated and underdiagnosed, and no cure has been found. Complex differences in patient genetics and immune function make developing new treatments particularly challenging and complicate patient care. Better tools and biomarkers that define and map these shared and unique immune cell interactions and pathways are critical for the design of new drug targets and effective interventions.

Novel public-private partnership

The Accelerating Medicines Partnership^® (AMP®) Program Autoimmune and Immune-Mediated Diseases (AMP AIM) is a precompetitive partnership that brings together the resources of 20 partner organizations spanning the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors. Managed by the FNIH, the project builds on the success of AMP RA/SLE, which pioneered a transformational approach to dissect how these diseases occur at the individual cell level. AMP RA/SLE advanced new technologies and analytical methods using biopsy and blood samples of diseased tissue from major organs, such as the kidney in lupus and the joints in arthritis. As a result, novel cell populations and pathways have been discovered, suggesting promising new targets for drug development. 
 

Reconstructing autoimmune pathways

As a next step, AMP AIM is working to refine and extend the single-cell analysis of biopsy (e.g., synovium, kidney, skin, salivary glands) and blood samples to include additional diseases, including psoriasis/psoriatic arthritis and Sjögren’s disease. The cornerstone of AMP AIM will be the utilization of a suite of next-generation tools and technologies to map how cell types, cell states, and cell-to-cell interactions network to cause inflammation, abnormal function, and tissue injury. The project will generate a comprehensive 3D atlas of integrated single cell multi-omics and identify inflammatory mediators to clarify regulatory mechanisms that govern functions within and between cells. This integrative analysis will provide valuable insights into shared and differential molecular and cellular signatures of the pathogenic immune responses in these diseases. The resulting data will accelerate our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms and causes of autoimmune and immune-mediated diseases, allow more informed selection of patients for clinical trials, and generate new targets for drug development.

Read more about AMP AIM on the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases’ website.