Fresh Meat: ANRF to Choose Young Researchers to Fund

Dr. Gale Granger was once in the shoes of the young researchers who are to be chosen for funding by the Arthritis National Research Foundation (ANRF) when the Scientific Advisory Board convenes on March 24^th.

Thirty years ago, Granger was a young researcher with ideas that were deemed too “out of the box” for serious consideration; after being funded, however, by the ANRF, his research led him to discover tumor necrosis factor, or TNF, the molecule responsible for commencing the inflammatory process in individuals with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) among other diseases.

Today, Granger is on the Scientific Advisory Board of ANRF and will aid the rest of the board in choosing the newest and brightest young researchers to further research in the effort of defeating arthritis and autoimmune diseases.

“We are serious about finding a cure,” said Dr. Mary K. Crow, former president of the American College of Rheumatology. “Asking the same questions and supporting the same research methods is not going to produce different results. Every year we are excited to evaluate new ideas and different approaches to research.”

The researchers chosen by the board, chaired by Dr. Carl F. Ware of the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in La Jolla, Ca, will continue working on finding a cure and treatments for RA, osteoarthritis and lupus.

“The young post-doctoral candidates that we fund represent the future leaders in arthritis and autoimmune disease research,” said Dr. Ware. “Their new, outside-the-box ideas are key to moving this research forward and finding new answers.”

The ANRF began providing grants to young promising innovators in 1970, and since the year 2000, has funded over 7.2 million dollars in research grants.