Rheumatoid arthritis is a debilitating and painful autoimmune disease. A systemic disease, rheumatoid arthritis affects a wide variety of organs in the human body, not simply the joints. This form of arthritis causes incapacitating swelling in the joints, but also manifests via a general malaise, fever and blood test abnormalities, as well as a wide variety of rare, but very serious complications.

Arthritis is an autoimmune disease, meaning that the culprit behind this disease is the body’s own immune system. The cause of this disease remains unknown, but there are a wide variety of treatments available that can help lessen the symptoms and attempt to slow the advance of the disease.

Yun-Cai Liu, Ph.D., and his lab focus on the study of autoimmune disorders. His lab’s goal is to find a method to “turn off” autoimmune attacks from the body. Being able to selectively disable the immune response would be of critical import for a wide variety of diseases. During studies of rheumatoid arthritis, Liu and his lab uncovered that the Cbl-b molecule (a type of cell signaler), when absent in the body, made subjects far more likely to develop the disease.

Liu’s hope is to use this knowledge to focus his research and gain greater insight on how to prevent autoimmune attacks in the human body, enabling more effective treatments of everything from rheumatoid arthritis to diabetes.