Accelerating Medicines Partnership® Program – Rheumatoid Arthritis, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Overview

The Accelerating Medicines Partnership^® (AMP^®) Program Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) & Related Autoimmune Disorders project focused on molecular analyses of gene expression and signaling in specific subsets of immune cells and resident tissue cells, in RA patients’ synovium and blood and in lupus patients’ kidney biopsy, skin and blood. AMP RA/SLE used novel technologies to molecularly deconstruct and analyze these highly refined relevant cell subsets or single cells, in order to understand the mechanisms of disease.

One of the first three projects in the AMP portfolio, AMP RA/SLE will formally close in 2023. Building on the success of AMP RA/SLE, the initiative was expanded to investigate other autoimmune and immune-mediated diseases through the AMP AIM project in December 2021.

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

Results and Accomplishments

The AMP RA/SLE project changed the Research landscape for rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. Specific project accomplishments include:

• Assembling a comprehensive data set using a wide range of molecular technologies (scRNAseq, scATACseq, scNUCseq, repertoire, histology, and clinical data) applied to small tissue biopsies, as well as urine and blood.
• Developing novel approaches for precision medicine and disease “deconstruction”, improving synovial and renal biopsy methodology
• Developing computational strategies to analyze and interpret large-scale single cell data
• Discovering novel cellular populations essential to tissue inflammation in the kidney and the synovium, including inflammatory fibroblasts
• Defining clinical biomarkers for disease progression, severity and treatment in blood and tissue

Scientific Publications

AMP RA/SLE has led to thirty-three peer-reviewed scientific journal articles.