2025 Research Highlight of the Year – Cast your vote now!

2025 Research Highlight of the Year – Cast your vote now!  

Last year, Arthritis UK started a competition called Research Highlight of the Year. We’re happy to say it’s back again! This is our way of celebrating the amazing research that you’ve helped us support. 

So far in 2025, our researchers have written nearly 500 papers to help us learn more about arthritis and how to make arthritis manageable, treatable, and preventable.  

As the year ends, we’re looking at all the great work and picking some of the most exciting projects. A special team of experts including researchers, our staff and people with arthritis, helped us choose six finalists.   

So, read through the highlights, and then go to our voting page and vote for your favourite!  

Our 2025 Research Highlight of the Year Shortlist  

1. The link between deprivation and unequal care

This major study highlights link between deprivation, chronic pain, and unequal care.

Researchers from the MIDAS project, have collected and analysed data from over 1,800 people visiting their GP for chronic musculoskeletal pain. They found that individuals living in deprived neighbourhoods consulted with higher levels of pain and disability. They also revealed that current care is failing to close the inequality gap, with higher opioid prescriptions and worse outcomes for people living in deprived areas. The hope is that we can use data to provide the hard evidence needed to raise awareness about the scale of inequalities in musculoskeletal health and care and improve services and conditions for people living with musculoskeletal pain conditions in places with the greatest need.  

This project was led by researchers from Keele University and Sheffield Hallam University and co-funded by Arthritis UK and the Nuffield Foundation through the Oliver Bird Fund.   

2. How immune cells could guide JIA treatment

Research reveals how immune cells could guide safer, smarter treatment for JIA.  

Researchers from University College London have studied a type of immune cell called regulatory T cells (Tregs) to help track disease activity in children with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA). 

Regulatory T cells, or Tregs, are special immune cells that act like police in your body. Their job is to stop the immune system from overreacting and attacking healthy tissues, helping to keep inflammation under control. In JIA, they sometimes don't work as well as they should, triggering inflammation. 

Using blood and joint fluid samples and artificial intelligence, the researchers found that how “fit” or healthy our Tregs are could tell the difference between active and inactive disease/remission and even predict flare-ups. With more testing, Treg “fitness” could help doctors use simple blood tests to guide treatment decisions, spot flares earlier, and safely reduce medication use, potentially leading to sustained remission in children with JIA. 

This work was led by Dr Anne Pesenacker and carried out by Meryl Attrill at UCL; it was funded by Arthritis UK.  

3. Exploring the genetics of osteoarthritis

Largest-ever osteoarthritis genetics study points to new drug targets and personalised care.

Researchers from the arcoGEN consortium have been involved in the largest-ever study on osteoarthritis using genetic data from nearly two million people. They found over 950 genetic links to osteoarthritis, uncovering 8 different underlying disease processes. Their groundbreaking findings could help to understand osteoarthritis better, showing new drug targets and paving the way for better and more personalised treatments. 

A large part of this work was carried out by the arcoGEN consortium, which was funded by Arthritis UK.  

Developing an osteoarthritis peer mentoring programme with and for people facing disadvantage. 

4. Making osteoarthritis peer mentoring accessible

How patient voices shaped a new approach for osteoarthritis care 

A team from the University of Leeds have developed a remote support programme to help people with osteoarthritis facing disadvantage. The programme involves ‘peer mentoring’ – a trained volunteer giving guided support to someone else with the same condition.   

The programme was created in stages based on an in-person programme. People with lived experience were central to the work. They shared views about things like digital access, confidence, and support. This helped make the programme easier to access and use.   

The programme was then trialled in a small study. The findings suggest the programme could benefit people delivering and receiving it and so help create a fairer future. 

The project was led by researchers from the University of Leeds working with public partners, including Peer Mentors Robin Brittain and Camilla Freeman. It was co-funded by Arthritis UK and the Nuffield Foundation through the Oliver Bird Fund.  

5. Sex differences in the immune system

Researchers uncover how oestrogen and sex chromosomes shape immune responses in arthritis. 

In a study led by University College London, researchers have investigated how sex hormones and chromosomes influence the immune system. They focused on a type of B cell that helps maintain long-term immune responses and may also cause inflammation. They found that teenage and adult women (before menopause) have more of these B cells than men of the same age. The increase in these cells is only seen after puberty and before menopause, showing a link to the sex hormone oestrogen.

In menopausal women taking oestrogen-based hormone replacement therapies (HRT), levels of this cell were increased to levels seen in younger women. However, this increase with oestrogen treatment was not seen in transgender women, who have different sex chromosomes. This indicates that both sex hormones and sex chromosomes work together to affect how the immune system behaves, which could influence why women are more likely to develop most types of arthritis than men.  

This research was led by Professor Coziana Ciurtin and co-senior author Dr Lizzy Rosser, and carried out by first author Dr Hannah Peckham and collaborators. It was funded by Arthritis UK.  

6. Understanding rheumatoid arthritis remission

How changes in dendritic cells may transform RA care. 

Researchers from the University of Glasgow have looked at immune cells that live in in the joints. They discovered that a type of immune cell called a dendritic cell provides a protective shield in healthy joints, and that this shield is doesn’t work as well in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), even in those in disease remission. They also showed that the failure to fully restore this shield may mean that remission is not stable in RA. 

These findings open new avenues for understanding how to keep remission in rheumatoid arthritis, which may lead to new approaches for treating active RA and preventing painful flare-ups, ultimately improving patients’ quality of life. 

This work was led by Professor Mariola Kurowska-Stolarska and Professor Stefano Alivernini along with first authors Dr Lucy MacDonald, Dr Aziza Elmesmari, Dr Domenico Somma and Dr Jack Frew at the Universities of Glasgow and The Gemelli University Hospital.  It was funded by Arthritis UK.