Unlocking the Immune System’s Mysteries: The Next Wave of RA Research 

ATLANTA (Nov. 24, 2025) - 2025 marks the fourth year of grant awards under the Arthritis Foundation’s Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) Research Program as we continue to push back against rheumatoid arthritis. This year’s funded projects aim to help clarify the role of the immune system in the pathology of this chronic, painful disease.  

The 2025 roster of awardees includes Megan Hanlon, PhD, from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Marla Glass, PhD, from the Allen Institute, Anna Helena Jonsson, MD, PhD, from the University of Colorado at Denver, Robert Corty, MD, PhD, from Vanderbilt University, and Kevin Wei, MD, PhD, also from Brigham and Women’s Hospital. 

“For autoimmune diseases, like RA, understanding immune system dysfunction is critical to predict the development, progression and non-response to treatment,” says Anna Lampe, PhD, senior director of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases at the Arthritis Foundation. “We have funded projects this year based on their merit in providing further insight into how immune responses in people with RA are altered.” 

The immune system begins to change by producing autoantibodies even before the onset of RA. Interestingly, not all patients in this preclinical stage develop full-blown RA. In fact, the immune mechanisms that drive conversion from preclinical to fully developed RA remain poorly understood.  

With her RA Research Program grant, Dr. Glass and her team will investigate the role of a type of immune cell known as B cells in the progression from preclinical to clinical RA. Specifically, they will use a combination of cellular and molecular methods to investigate the properties and dynamics of B cells that target the body’s own tissues during progression from the at-risk state to clinical RA. Dr. Hanlon will examine the dysfunction of another type of immune cell, called monocytes, and their heightened sensitivity to inflammatory signals in RA patients. For her Arthritis Foundation-funded project, she will use laboratory-grown, three-dimensional models of synovial tissue created from stem cells (synovial organoids). 

Among those patients who do convert from preclinical to clinical RA, around 5% to 20% of patients with RA will have hard-to-treat disease, called “refractory RA.” These patients experience persistent arthritis pain. To bring attention to this problem, the Arthritis Foundation has funded two projects.  

Dr. Wei and his team will define the link between neurotrophins, a protein critical for nerve growth and blood vessel development, and the three important players that generate pain. Their overall goal is to determine if neurotrophins are a target for therapy for refractory RA. Dr. Jonsson will use her grant to investigate the root cause of RA, aiming to better understand why some patients develop treatment resistance. Her group will focus its attention on cytotoxic T immune cells, which are abundant in the joints of people with RA. Using a variety of laboratory tools, they will identify what proteins in the joint these T cells are recognizing — whether bacteria, viruses or the body’s own proteins — and determine whether molecular mimicry (where a foreign protein resembles a self-protein) may be contributing to autoimmunity.  

Patients with RA are also at high risk for heart disease and bone loss. New research suggests that clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP), a condition in which specific genetic mutations in blood stem cells become more prevalent with age, may contribute to increased inflammation in the body. Dr. Corty, an RA Research Program awardee, speculates that CHIP may also influence RA. For his Arthritis Foundation-funded project, his team will utilize two resources at Vanderbilt University Medical Center: a large DNA and health record database of over 250,000 patients, and a smaller group of RA patients who have donated blood samples. They will look at how CHIP changes DNA methylation, a chemical marker that controls how genes are turned on or off, to understand if CHIP-related changes could lead to RA or make it worse. 

“At the Arthritis Foundation, we are dedicated to helping people with rheumatoid arthritis live better today while working toward a future free of pain,” says Steven Taylor, president and CEO of the Arthritis Foundation. “Through our RA Research Program, we are supporting studies that aim to prevent the disease, slow its progression and bring new hope to everyone affected by RA.” 

The Arthritis Foundation launched the RA Research Program in 2021. Through collaborations with experts from government and academia, the Foundation has refined its priorities in RA research by focusing on knowledge gaps in understanding the biological underpinnings of RA, particularly treatment-resistant RA, risk factors influencing disease progression and comorbidities. 

2025 Rheumatoid Arthritis Program Awardees 

1. Megan Hanlon, PhD, Brigham and Women's Hospital 
   • $150,000 
   • The inflamed synovium as a trigger for trained immunity in RA   
2. Anna Helena Jonsson, MD, PhD, University of Colorado Denver 
   • $450,000 
   • Defining the antigen specificities and spatial organization of synovial CD8 T cells in RA 
3. Marla Glass, PhD, Allen Institute 
   • $ 149,567 
   • Kinetics of autoreactive B cells during the progression to rheumatoid arthritis     
4. Robert Corty, MD, PhD, Vanderbilt University 
   • $150,000 
   • Defining rheumatoid arthritis phenotypes through the lens of clonal hematopoiesis 
5. Kevin Wei, MD, PhD, Brigham and Women's Hospital 
   • $450,000 
   • Targeting neurotrophins in refractory rheumatoid arthritis 

About the Arthritis Foundation  

The Arthritis Foundation is fighting for all people who live with arthritis. The Foundation’s mission is to turn the obstacles arthritis causes into opportunities. The Arthritis Foundation champions life-changing solutions and medical advancements, and it also provides ways for people to connect, break down barriers in health care and join the fight for a cure — uniting hearts, minds and resources to change the future of arthritis. To join the fight to conquer arthritis, visit arthritis.org.