{"id":462,"date":"2023-03-17T16:21:20","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T16:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcaid-h2020.eu\/?page_id=462"},"modified":"2023-03-17T16:21:21","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T16:21:21","slug":"full-project-description-esr-17","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/arcaid-h2020.eu\/?page_id=462","title":{"rendered":"Full project description ESR 17"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><strong>E<span style=\"color: #000000;\">SR 17<\/span><\/strong><strong>:\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><strong>Immune monitoring of macrophages in the development and progression of rheumatoid arthritis and immune checkpoint inhibitor-induced rheumatic manifestations &#8211; <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">POSITION FILLED<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">PhD research<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #0000ff;\"><span style=\"font-family: tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Host:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Dr Conny J. van de Laken<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Department of Rheumatology<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Amsterdam UMC, location VUMC<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #0000ff;\">Duration: <\/span>48 months<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration: underline;\">Background<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">In rheumatoid arthritis (RA), synovial macrophage infiltration is hallmark of the disease, reflecting disease activity in early and established stages. Moreover, reduction of synovial macrophage infiltration serves as a sensitive biomarker for therapy response monitoring. To this end, macrophage imaging has been explored as a non-invasive diagnostic tool for imaging of early RA disease activity as well as monitoring response to therapeutics. Recently, we successfully demonstrated the feasibility of positron emission tomography (PET) for macrophage imaging of two target proteins (folate receptor \u03b2 (FR\u03b2) and translocator protein (TSPO)) in arthritic rats and RA patients.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Beyond classical arthritis development, there is emerging evidence that 5-20% of cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (anti-PD-1\/PD-L1) develop variable immune-related adverse events (irAEs) with clinical manifestations of inflammatory arthritis which may not only involve aberrancies in T cell function, but also in macrophage polarization. Hence, immune monitoring of monocyte-macrophages in classical RA <em>vs<\/em> irAE-induced arthritis may provide new insights in the role of macrophages in RA pathogenesis in autoimmune diseases and optimal application of macrophage PET imaging for disease and therapy response monitoring.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #0000ff;\"><span style=\"font-family: tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Approach\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">The project will cover two parts: (a) m<em>onocyte-macrophage immune-monitoring, <\/em>using flow cytometry and immunohistochemistry examination of monocyte \/macrophage (polarization) markers in peripheral blood, synovial fluid and\/or synovial tissue material of early and established RA patients and peripheral blood of cancer patients with irAEs, and (b) based on these results , <em>PET imaging feasibility studies in arthritic rats<\/em> will be performed for a selected novel macrophage tracer, a radiolabeled PD-1 or PD-L1 PET tracer, and [<sup>18<\/sup>F]fluoro-PEG folate as a reference tracer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration: underline;\">Our research team<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8211; Dept. of Rheumatology (location VUmc &amp; AMC): Dr. C.J. vd Laken (associate professor and expert in translational molecular imaging of immunology), dr. G. Jansen (biochemist and expert in areas of therapeutics and drug resistance), prof. dr. R.F. v Vollenhoven (head of department and expert in large clinical trials in several reumatic diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and SLE).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8211; Dept. of Medical Oncology (Cancer Center Amsterdam): Prof. dr. T.D. de Gruijl, dr. M. Labots (experts in immunological processes in oncology).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8211; Dept. Radiology &amp; Nuclear Medicine (AMC-location VUmc): dr. W. Beaino, dr. D. Vugts, prof. dr. A.D. Windhorst, prof. dr. G.A.M.S. van Dongen (expert team to perform translational molecular imaging studies in immunology).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8211; Dept. of Molecular Cell Biology and Immunology (Amsterdam Immunology &amp; Infection Institute): dr. J.J. Garcia Vallejo (expert in experimental immunology).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Website: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/ams-rc.com\/\">https:\/\/ams-rc.com\/<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ESR 17:\u00a0Immune monitoring of macrophages in the development and progression of rheumatoid arthritis and immune checkpoint inhibitor-induced rheumatic manifestations &#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-462","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcaid-h2020.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcaid-h2020.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcaid-h2020.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcaid-h2020.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcaid-h2020.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arcaid-h2020.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":463,"href":"https:\/\/arcaid-h2020.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/462\/revisions\/463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcaid-h2020.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}