The UK’s Medical Research Council (MRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), is investing up to £50m in a new research centre focused on chronic inflammatory diseases.
Led by the University of Birmingham, the centre will bring together scientists, clinicians and patient research partners from the UK and Japan.
The new MRC Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) in Restorative Immunology will investigate why immune-mediated diseases (IMIDs) develop and, crucially, why inflammation persists in some people.
Researchers will use this knowledge to develop therapies designed to address the underlying causes of disease rather than simply controlling symptoms.
Over a 14-year programme, the researchers aim to develop treatments that restore immune balance and repair damaged tissues.
The long-term ambition is to achieve lasting freedom from disease and reduce the need for lifelong medication for people living with debilitating inflammatory conditions.
Professor Adam P Croft, Arthritis UK Chair of Rheumatology and Director of the MRC CoRE in Restorative Immunology, emphasised the significance of the project: “While remarkable advances have been made in the treatment of immune-mediated inflammatory diseases over the past two decades, the focus has largely been on controlling inflammation to relieve symptoms and prevent damage to tissues.
“This approach has improved the lives of many patients, but it does not address the underlying mechanisms that cause and sustain disease. Our patients are clear: they want more than lifelong disease management – they want the possibility of cure.
“New technologies now permit us to study tissues at unprecedented resolution, revealing how healthy tissue becomes diseased and identifying the cells and molecular pathways that drive this process.
“Combined with the development of therapies capable of precisely targeting these mechanisms, this creates a realistic opportunity to move beyond lifelong disease control towards treatments delivered with curative intent – with the ultimate goal of restoring lasting health and wellbeing.”
Tackling a major health burden
IMIDs include inflammatory arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), autoimmune liver disease, and Sjögren’s disease.
They can affect both children and adults, developing when the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue in areas including the joints, gut, skin, eyes, liver, and salivary glands.
Persistent inflammation can lead to irreversible damage, chronic pain and lifelong disability. More than four million people in the UK are estimated to live with IMIDs, while IBD alone is estimated to cost the NHS as much as £900m annually.
Although treatment for these conditions has advanced significantly, there are currently no cures. Many patients therefore depend on long-term therapy to control inflammation and limit further damage.
A new approach to inflammatory diseases
The CoRE in Restorative Immunology will bring together expertise from eight universities:
- The University of Birmingham
- Kyoto University
- Newcastle University
- University College London
- The University of Bristol
- The University of Cambridge
- The University of Glasgow; and
- The University of Oxford
The wider programme will also involve charities, public engagement organisations and industry. Alongside developing new treatments, the collaboration will support the training of the next generation of researchers.
Its work will centre on three questions: what keeps human tissues healthy, why inflammation fails to resolve in some people, and how both the immune system and damaged tissues can be returned to a healthy state.
Mapping how inflammatory conditions develop
Researchers will first build detailed maps showing what happens inside healthy and diseased tissues.
This will include examining how different cells are arranged into local ‘neighbourhoods’, how they communicate and how those relationships change as disease develops.
The aim is to identify the cellular changes that trigger disease and the processes that enable inflammation to continue.
The team will then use this information to create laboratory models of human tissues. These models will be used to study how harmful interactions between cells emerge and to test approaches for disrupting them while restoring the cellular networks needed for healthy tissue function.
Towards precision treatment
The final stage will focus on turning those discoveries into precision therapies. These treatments will be designed to reset the immune system while also encouraging deeper healing of damaged tissue.
The researchers hope this could lead to therapies that restore tissue health more quickly and effectively, potentially reducing or removing the need for lifelong treatment.
By combining diseased-cell mapping with precision therapies, researchers aim to develop longer-lasting, potentially curative treatments for millions living with inflammatory diseases.
Team Health Accessible
Health & Wellness Editorial Team
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