Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Rheumatoid arthritis and related inflammatory arthritis diseases collectively affect 16% of Canadians with an estimated socio-economic burden of $6 billion annually. The symptoms associated with these debilitating diseases are the result of an underlying state of chronic inflammation. Current treatments for inflammatory arthritis and other chronic inflammatory diseases directly inhibit critical molecules of the immune system. As a result these treatments often have the unwanted side effects of making patients more susceptible to infections and sometimes the development of certain cancers. Therefore, there is an urgent need for new treatment methods that do not produce the negative side effects of the current therapies for controlling chronic inflammatory diseases. We have shown that a group of small molecules known as host defence peptides can suppress inflammation while maintaining the immune system's ability to control infections. This dual function makes them attractive candidates as potential therapeutics for chronic inflammatory diseases including arthritis. In our recent studies, we have identified specific peptide candidates that can control rheumatoid arthritis in mice. We have now established the experimental tools and animal models that will allow us to more fully examine the activity of these peptides in the context of inflammatory arthritis. In this project, we will study the biological effects of the host defence peptides during the different stages of disease progression in a mouse model of rheumatoid arthritis. The results from this project will support the development of new peptide therapeutics for inflammatory arthritis, and will also identify new drug targets that can potentially be used to identify future anti-inflammatory therapeutics.