The Myositis Association announced the recipients of its 2023 Myositis Research Awards. Myositis can be difficult to diagnose and treat and often results in symptoms such as skin rashes, severe muscle pain and weakness, and lung scarring. As part of the association’s 21-year research funding program, the 2023 research grants are designed to support research aimed at better understanding the disease and developing more effective therapeutic options for this patient population.
Among the awardees were Sarah Tansley, PhD, BSc, MBChB, Professor of Rheumatology in the Department of Life Sciences at the Centre for Therapeutic Innovation at the University of Bath, who received the Pilot Grant to examine the variability across myositis autoantibody testing sites and establish a method to better identify biomarkers associated with the disease. Begum Horuluoglu, MD, PhD, MSc, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Division of Rheumatology at the Karolinska Institutet, received the Fellowship Award to investigate why muscle cells are targeted by the immune system in patients with myositis.