RA treatment beyond the conventional:
Will JAK inhibitors disrupt our treatment paradigms?

Peter Nash is Associate Professor at the Department of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane, and Director of the Rheumatology Research Unit, Sunshine Coast, Australia. He is Chair of the Professional Affairs Committee and serves on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Australian Rheumatology Association. He is also a member of the Therapeutics Committee of the Australia and New Zealand Bone and Mineral Society. In addition, he is a member of the International Steering Committees of the Expert Panel on Outcomes Measures in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension related to Systemic Sclerosis (EPOSS) and the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA).

Professor Nash and his group at the Rheumatology Research Unit have been involved in pivotal registration clinical trials for all modern targeted biologic therapies. He has published >100 peer-reviewed papers and four book chapters, and acts as reviewer for a number of journals. His special interests include metabolic bone disease and novel therapeutics.

John Isaacs is Professor of Clinical Rheumatology at Newcastle University, and a consultant rheumatologist at the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Over the past 25 years, his work has focused on the potential of novel immunotherapies to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ranging from target identification to early- and late-stage clinical trials. He has performed several pioneering experimental medicine studies in patients with inflammatory disease, challenging existing dogma, and informing the design of subsequent generations of therapeutic agents.

Professor Isaacs directs Newcastle University's Translational Medicine Institute, the Institute of Cellular Medicine, and runs a research group focused on therapeutic tolerance induction. Recently, his team has developed and completed a Phase I study of tolerogenic dendritic cell therapy in patients with inflammatory arthritis. With Professor Iain McInnes (Glasgow) and Professor Chris Buckley (Birmingham), he is a principal investigator of the Arthritis Research UK (ARUK) Centre of Excellence in RA Pathogenesis. In 1999, Professor Isaacs received the British Society for Rheumatology Michael Mason Medal, and in 2010, he presented the Heberden Round to the society.

From 2007 to 2017, Professor Isaacs chaired ARUK's Clinical Study Group for Adult Inflammatory Arthritis, developing a competitive research agenda for the UK. He also leads the Medical Research Council/Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (MRC/ABPI) RA-MAP consortium, seeking prognostic and therapeutic biomarkers for RA. Professor Isaacs is a principal investigator of the National Institute for Health Research Translational Research Partnership for inflammatory disease, and a member of the MRC's Translational Research Group. He has published >200 peer-reviewed manuscripts.

Andrea Rubbert-Roth is Associate Professor and Senior Physician at the Kantonsspital St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland, since October 2017.

Professor Rubbert-Roth completed her postgraduate training in Internal Medicine at the Medizinische Klinik III, University of Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany before joining the Laboratory of Immunoregulation, National Institute of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA as a research fellow in 1995. Prior to starting her current posts, she was Associate Professor and Senior Physician at the Department of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, Clinic I for Internal Medicine at the University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.

Since 1998, Professor Rubbert-Roth has initiated and participated in numerous Phase I–III clinical trials evaluating the use of biologic therapies in rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, scleroderma, and systemic lupus erythematosus.

Professor Rubbert-Roth is an active member of the German Society of Rheumatology and a past member of the Advisory Council and the Committee for Pharmacotherapy. Professor Rubbert-Roth also has a postdoctoral lecture qualification in habilitation and a board certificate in clinical infectiology.