Rheumatology

Members of the Research Team:
Dr Oksana Kehoe (Lead) and PhD students Anais Makos and Henry Barrett

Clinical Support:
Dr Ayman Askari (Lead), Dr Roshan Amarasena, Dr Julia Flint and Dr Rameez Arif.

Our team has continued to be active this year carrying out basic science work into understanding mechanisms of inflammatory arthritis diagnosis, progression and possible treatments including mesenchymal stem cells, regulatory T cells and their extracellular vesicles. We also try to find out how stem cells can be “encouraged” to perform better in ageing and in disease such as arthritis. In our research we use many approaches, from cell biology, to biochemistry, molecular biology and animal models.

We are very fortunate in RJAH to be able to work closely with clinicians who themselves are very interested in research. 

We have been publishing our findings in Stem Cell Reviews and Reports, Journal of Extracellular Vesicles, Stem Cell Research & Therapy and Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases and  have presented our work at several national and international meetings such as EULAR 2024 Congress, June 2024, Vienna, Austria; 2^nd MOVE symposium, October 2024, Belgrade, Serbia; the UKEV Forum 2024, December 2024, Newcastle, UK (Figure 1); the British Society for Matrix Biology Spring meeting, April 2025, Nottingham, UK; the GRAPPA Annual Meeting, July 2025, Bogotá, Colombia.

We are very grateful to the Orthopaedic Institute Charity, Oswestry for their continuous support.