LEADING biomedical researchers Emeritus Professor Sir Ravinder Maini, pictured right, and Professor Marc Feldmann have been awarded the prestigious 2003 Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research.

Based at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Faculty of Medicine, Charing Cross campus, both received the award for their discovery of anti-TNF (tumour necrosis factor) treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and other related diseases.

A chronic inflammatory disease affecting the immune system, rheumatoid arthritis affects about 400,000 people in the UK, causing pain and progressive joint damage leading to chronic disability and reduced life expectancy.

Twenty years ago, the professors began working together to establish which molecules in rheumatoid arthritis were driving the inflammation and joint destruction. Using tissue taken from joints, they investigated the role of cytokines, protein messenger molecules that drive inflammation, and discovered a single cytokine, TNF, was responsible.

Anti-TNF therapy, which used a blocking antibody, resulted in rapid and dramatic improvement for sufferers. Collaboration with an American biotech company paved the way for three anti-TNF drugs to be produced - infliximab, etanercept and adalimumab - which protect joints from further destruction.

Now, almost 500,000 rheumatoid arthritis patients have benefitted worldwide. As TNF is also involved in other chronic inflammatory diseases, anti-TNF therapy is being used routinely for Crohn's inflammatory bowel disease, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, as well as for children with chronic arthritis.

"The discovery that inhibiting just one molecule could make such a huge difference to the many sufferers of this terrible disease was a truly remarkable find," explained Professor Maini. "It is extremely pleasing to find our research has benefited so many, and has been recognised through this award."

Professor Feldmann added: "It is a great honour to receive this award, and a pleasure to see that well funded long-term research such as that supported by the Arthritis Research Campaign can have such benefit for patients.

"The research strength we were able to develop enabled us to influence the pharmaceutical industry to move into new territory, which proved to be very fruitful."

Sixty-six recipients of the Lasker Awards, first awarded in 1946 and known as 'America's Nobels', have gone on to receive Nobel prizes.

It is only the third time that rheumatology research has been honoured - the first was for the discovery of corticosteroid in 1949 and the second for joint replacement surgery in 1974.

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, principal of the Faculty of Medicine, summed up: "This is a very significant award for Marc and Ravinder, as well as Imperial as a whole.

"It underlines the importance of translational research for the future of healthcare and is a fine example of how to take research from the laboratory bench to the patient's bedside in one seamless process.