Multiplex SNP array for the stratification of therapy response in rheumatoid arthritis patients

类风湿性关节炎(RA)是一种慢性炎症性疾病，影响全球1%的人口和英国的40万人。它会导致联合破坏、渐进性残疾，往往还会导致死亡。细胞因子、肿瘤坏死因子-α在类风湿关节炎中的联合作用导致了抗肿瘤坏死因子药物的发展和广泛应用，以阻断其促炎作用，对60%-70%的患者有效。30%-40%的接受治疗的患者没有从这些昂贵的药物中获得任何好处，仍然会招致成本和可能的副作用。拟议的解决了未得到满足的临床需求，即事先识别对抗肿瘤坏死因子治疗无效的患者。著名的Randox工业创新与阿尔斯特大学的生物标记物发现相结合，创造了一种新型的影响遗传标记的小组，用于组装到多路生物芯片阵列上，以快速确定对抗肿瘤坏死因子治疗的共鸣。

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting 1% of the global population and 400,000 people in the UK. It leads to joint destruction, progressive disability and often mortality. Association of the cytokine, TNF-alpha in RA has led to development and widespread use of anti-TNF drugs to block its pro-inflammatory effects, which are effective in 60-70% of patients. The 30-40% of treated patients, who derive no benefit from these expensive drugs, still incur the cost and possible side effects. The proposed addresses the unmet clinical need for prior identification of patients who will not respond to anti-TNF therapy. The renowned industrial innovation of Randox combined with biomarker discoveries at University of Ulster has created a novel panel of influencing genetic markers for assembly onto a multiplex biochip array to rapidly determine resonse to anti-TNF therapy.