The patient’s own cells as therapy for rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic condition in which the own immune system attacks healthy tissue of the joint, and for which there is no cure. Our project is a collaboration between University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht University, Radboudumc, the company Trajectum Pharma BV, and the Dutch Arthritis Society. Together, we study the safety and feasibility of a novel cell therapy which may potentially cure rheumatoid arthritis in the future. Approximately 1 in 200 people world-wide are diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a chronic autoimmune disease that can result in permanent disability. RA patients often also suffer from other complaints, such as chronic fatigue and depression, which severely impact quality of life as well as the ability to work. As such, the personal, societal and economic costs of RA are substantial. The immunosuppressive drugs that are currently used to treat these patients merely treat the symptoms of the disease without solving the underlying problem. These drugs therefore require life-long use and cause substantial side-effects, such as increased risk of infections. Novel treatments are needed that can retrain the immune system and cure autoimmune disease. One of the most promising approaches to achieve this is by cell therapy using tolerogenic dendritic cells. These are the patient’s own cells which are trained outside the body to reinstruct the immune system. Successful treatment with these cells may resolve the underlying problem of RA and result in drug-free remission, effectively curing the patient. In this project we investigate the safety of tolerogenic dendritic cells when administered to RA patients by injection into the lymph node. The results will tell which dose of cells is safe and whether the treatment invokes the intended immune response.