Dr. Gale “Morrie” Granger (1937 – 2018) is a former grant recipient of the Arthritis National Research Foundation. Early in his career as a researcher at the University of California, Irvine, Dr. Granger received funding from ANRF to study the immunological processes occurring in the tissue destruction observed in Rheumatoid Arthritis. This early research ultimately led to the discovery that the white blood cells present in the joints of RA patients induce the tissue destruction by releasing molecules termed cytokines. This finding, in turn, led to the recent development of agents that block cytokine activity and hold great promise for therapy for patients with this debilitating disease.

Dr. Granger was a Professor of Immunology at the University of California, Irvine, since 1967 and a consultant to numerous hospitals, research institutes and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He served on the Arthritis National Research Foundation board of directors beginning 1990, including as president from 1997-99. It was his vision and guidance that led to the establishment of ANRF’s Scientific Advisory Board in 1998.

As the director of a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional research program, Dr. Granger was responsible for supervising basic research in cancer and autoimmune disease, and for conducting clinical trials in patients. This program was designed to bring basic and clinical scientists together with the objective of understanding how the body’s immune system causes the tissue destruction observed in autoimmune diseases and how it interacts with cancer cells. The results of these basic studies are then employed to design and test new methods of therapy for these diseases.