National Psoriasis Foundation awards $1.05 million in research grants

Thirteen scientists received a total of $1.05 million in funding from the National Psoriasis Foundation for projects that aim to identify new treatments and a cure for psoriasis—an autoimmune disease that appears on the skin, affecting 7.5 million Americans—and psoriatic arthritis—an inflammatory arthritis that affects the joints and tendons, occurring in up to 30 percent of people with psoriasis.

This year, three scientists each received a two-year, $200,000 National Psoriasis Foundation Translational Grant to "translate" their laboratory findings into improved treatments and methods for managing psoriatic disease.

The Translational Grant recipients and their projects are:

• Kevin Cooper, M.D., of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland received the Dr. Alan Menter Translational Grant, named in recognition of one of the world's leading psoriatic disease experts. Cooper will determine whether systemic psoriasis treatments can reduce the risk for cardiovascular disease.

• Lorena Riol Blanco, Ph.D., of Harvard Medical School will study how pain fibers drive the production of interleukin-23 (IL-23), a protein linked to inflammation, to find new therapies for psoriasis inflammation.

• Michael Rosenblum, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, will examine the role of a special class of regulatory T-cells involved in suppressing inflammation, in people with psoriasis. He aims to discover why these cells function abnormally in psoriasis to develop treatments to repair them and treat psoriasis.

Additionally, 10 researchers each received a one-year, $75,000 Discovery Grant for early-stage psoriatic disease research.

The Discovery Grant recipients and their projects are:

Provided by National Psoriasis Foundation