Award: Arthritis and Related Autoimmune Disease Research Grant
Biography: Rebecca B. Blank, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine whose research focuses on rheumatoid arthritis (RA). She obtained a PhD in immunology at the University of California, San Francisco, performed postdoctoral research at the National Institutes of Health on the role of regulatory T cells in modulating gut inflammation, and received her MD from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. She completed her residency in internal medicine at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Hospital, NY and rheumatology fellowship at NYU Langone. Her research focuses on the role of the gut microbiome in pathogenesis and amelioration of inflammatory arthritis, particularly RA. She has two ongoing proof-of-concept trials investigating how the gut microbiome and its metabolic products, such as short chain fatty acids (SCFA), may modulate the gut microbiome and induce a regulatory immune response in patients with RA. She also is interested in predictive biomarkers of treatment efficacy in RA.
Research Summary: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, autoimmune disease characterized by widespread joint inflammation affecting ~1% of the world’s population (including ~2 million adults in the US alone). Methotrexate (MTX) is a first line treatment for RA and while the use of MTX has significantly improved the lives of many people with RA, over 50% of patients do not respond adequately to this drug alone. Our studies have shown that the bacteria that live inside our gut, the “gut microbiome,” can play a role in whether a patient responds to MTX, partially because some gut bacteria break down MTX into inactive forms. We have also shown that bacterially produced byproducts, such as butyrate, can help change the composition of the gut microbiome and correlates with patient MTX treatment response. Butyrate has also been shown to modify the immune response.
Therefore, we aim to identify the role of butyrate on the gut microbiome and patient immune response in RA patients treated with MTX and butyrate versus MTX alone. Successful completion of our proposed studies will provide key insights into how a gut bacterial product, butyrate, changes the composition of the gut microbiome, contributes to MTX break down and modifies the immune response, ultimately identifying novel therapeutic approaches to improve the effects of MTX in RA treatment.
Links:
https://nyulangone.org/doctors/1164884409/rebecca-b-blank
https://med.nyu.edu/research/scher-lab/lab-team