When I joined NIAMS three and a half years ago, I talked about my commitment to collaboration and learning from the NIAMS community in my first director’s letter. Since then, we have done a lot of both collaborating and learning! I highly value the input from the NIAMS community on the development of our resources and in determining the direction of our research so that we are addressing the needs of the various audiences we serve, from researchers and medical providers to patients and caregivers. NIAMS regularly solicits feedback to understand audience needs. Over the past two years, the NIAMS

Overview A team of NIAMS-funded researchers discovered an imbalance of T cell subtypes in patients with lupus that contributes to ongoing production of disease-causing autoantibodies. Compared to healthy individuals, patients with lupus have more T cells with specialized B cell helper functions and fewer T cells that are important for wound healing and maintaining the epithelial barrier, which acts to protect the body from pathogens and other invaders. The team identified two molecules that control this imbalance, which could be the targets of lupus treatments in the future. The study was recently published in the journal Nature. Background Systemic lupus

Back pain is one of the most common forms of chronic pain affecting adults. People with chronic back pain often take opioids for pain management, but opioids are highly addictive. To address this public health challenge, in 2019 NIH launched the Back Pain Consortium (BACPAC) Research Program, part of the NIH Helping to End Addiction Long-term® (HEAL) Initiative that launched in 2018, a patient-centered effort to address the need for non-addictive, effective and personalized therapies for chronic back pain. Scientists are conducting clinical trials with the hopes of finding new non-opioid treatments. Yet for clinical trials to be effective, the