UNC’s Thurston Arthritis Research Center in the Spotlight

The overarching theme of Dr. Tarrant’s laboratory work is to “understand how immune cells migrate abnormally in autoimmune disease, in inflammation and immune deficiency.” The most recent investigations of the Tarrant lab explore chemokine receptor signaling mechanisms important in rheumatoid arthritis. Many of these studies have also been instructive in how cells move abnormally in immune deficiency and in cancer metastasis.

In a collaborative UNC initiative, funded by the NIH, Dr. Tarrant’s group teamed with chemists to explore novel imaging in inflammation. The team used novel nano materials designed by the Department of Chemistry, combined with labeling techniques, to allow imaging, with MRI or fluorescence, of monocytes as they moved in autoimmune arthritis. The idea behind these explorations is that the ability to detect subtle levels of inflammation not detectable on X-ray or by examination could then possibly lead to new strategies for intercepting inflammatory pathways and resulting structural damage.

Dr. Tarrant is also currently exploring a partnership with the Department of Ophthalmology and the School of Dentistry at UNC to devise a multidisciplinary setting for managing and treating patients with Sjögren’s disease.

Engagement with Community

Dr. Callahan

Leigh F. Callahan, PhD, is the Mary Link Briggs Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the UNC TARC. In May 2014, Thurston became the new home of the Osteoarthritis Action Alliance (OAAA), and Dr. Callahan its new director. OAAA is a national coalition of organizations mobilized by the Arthritis Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The affiliation “fits right in with the focus of our multipurpose clinical research center, mitigating the impact of arthritis on public health,” says Dr. Callahan.

Thurston Arthritis Research Center “Heels” team gathers for their participation in the annual Arthritis Foundation Walk. Courtesy Thurston Arthritis Research Center

 

Her 25 years of epidemiological work with arthritis interventions has focused on robust partnerships with communities. For example, in designing and establishing the evidence base of the community-based, six-week-long Arthritis Foundation’s Walk with Ease program, with grant support from the CDC, Dr. Callahan and her colleagues began work with 465 individuals in many counties across the state. A subanalysis of African Americans within that study addressing barriers to self-management of arthritis was just published in the CDC’s Preventing Chronic Disease journal.¹

“The university encourages the community to partner, so people are receptive and eager to be part of our studies and research,” says Dr. Callahan. Through contacts with churches, the Mexican consulate, community centers and the UNC Center for Latino Health (CELAH) clinics, the Center has also recruited 285 Hispanic individuals to test the adapted Walk with Ease program (Camine con Gusto) so that it’s culturally specific for the state and nation’s growing Hispanic population. In another collaboration, they are partnering with oncologists to determine if the program will help breast cancer survivors with joint pain caused by taking aromatase inhibitors become more physically active.