The National Scleroderma Foundation is excited to announce that scleroderma will be part of the expanded Accelerated Medicines Partnership Autoimmune and Immune-Mediated Diseases (AMP® AIM) program.
The Foundation has partnered with the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, and other government and advocacy organizations, to ensure scleroderma will be part of this incredibly exciting research opportunity.
“This project brings together a network of researchers to tackle this extremely complex disease,” Mary J. Wheatley, CEO of the National Scleroderma Foundation said. “We can leverage technologies through this project that we could never achieve through single investigator research initiatives.”
The AMP AIM program is managed through the FNIH, with support from several institutes within the NIH and public and private partners. AMP AIM is a component of the Accelerating Medicines Program, which launched in 2014 to transform the way we develop diagnostics and treatments in the United States.
This marks an expansion of the original AMP AIM program and will allow researchers to conduct in-depth studies at the molecular level that will help us better understand the causes of scleroderma, why the disease varies so widely, and how different people are likely to progress and even what treatments may be most effective.
“The expanded initiative reflects a growing commitment across public, private, academic, and patient communities to accelerate progress in autoimmune disease research, which together affect more than 15 million Americans,” said Meghan Pennini, Director, Translational Science, Inflammation and Immunity at the FNIH. “By using advanced tools to study cells and molecules, this program will help us better understand both the shared and unique biological processes that drive different autoimmune diseases.”
“We believe this can be a key step towards gaining novel insights into disease processes and developing personalized medicine approaches for people living with scleroderma and other autoimmune disease,” Dr. Carol Feghali-Bostwick, Chair of the National Scleroderma Board of Directors said.
The Foundation’s Role
The National Scleroderma Foundation initiated and led the inclusion of scleroderma in the AMP AIM expansion, has committed significant funding to this program, and serves on the Steering Committee.
“This is the power of a national organization backed by a community that is committed to advocacy and driving the future of scleroderma research,” Wheatley said. “We led the charge for this monumental project that will change the future of research and patient care.”
Through this collaboration, leading researchers across top institutions will work together to study scleroderma at an unprecedented level of detail. By examining individual cells from patient samples, the team aims to better understand how the immune system, blood vessels, and scar-forming (fibrotic) processes interact to drive the disease.
The Foundation leveraged partnerships with research institutes across the country to help identify the research teams that will participate in this project. All the research locations have been recognized by the Foundation as Designated Scleroderma Research and Treatment Centers. The following institutions will be participating in the scleroderma disease team:
- Boston University Medical Center
- Hospital for Special Surgery
- University of Michigan
- University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
- University of Texas Health Sciences Center, Houston
- Yale University
By bringing together cutting-edge science, shared data, and a collaborative network of experts, this partnership represents a major step toward better treatment, and ultimately, a cure.
This is just the beginning of an exciting new era of scleroderma research. The Foundation will continue to provide updates as researchers uncover new information and reach new milestones in our understanding of scleroderma.