Approach
Why Research in Rheumatoid Arthritis Matters?
Research in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is essential to improve how we understand, diagnose, and treat this complex disease. Although current therapies can help control inflammation and slow joint damage, not all patients respond to the same treatments, and many still experience pain, fatigue, and disability.
Scientific research helps uncover how and why RA develops, identifying the immune pathways and molecules that trigger and sustain inflammation. This knowledge allows researchers to design targeted therapies that act precisely on the mechanisms causing the disease, improving both safety and effectiveness.
Ongoing studies also aim to find biomarkers, human gene profiles, clinical data from RA patients, that can predict how a patient will respond to a given treatment, helping doctors choose the right therapy at the right time.
In addition, research is vital for understanding long-term effects of current drugs, their impact on bone health, cardiovascular risk, and overall quality of life. Advances in imaging, genetics, and molecular biology are opening new doors to personalized medicine, where treatments can be tailored to each patient’s unique disease profile.
Ultimately, RA research brings hope, not only for better disease management, but also for the development of strategies to prevent or even cure the disease in the future.
How STRATA-FIT Is Changing RA Care
The STRATA-FIT project aims to transform the way difficult-to-treat rheumatoid arthritis (D2T RA) is identified and managed. STRATA-FIT will develop the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI)-based clinical decision aid to help identify patients with D2T RA, understand their specific disease patterns, and support doctors in choosing the most effective personalised treatment strategies.
Using detailed real-world patient data collected from electronic health records across Europe, researchers will train and validate advanced computational models to predict which patients are at risk of developing D2T RA and how their disease is likely to progress. In the second phase of the project, these models will be applied in clinical practice to test whether this personalised approach improves patient outcomes. The project will also explore the biological mechanisms behind D2T RA by studying proteins and inflammatory markers in patient samples, helping to better understand why some patients respond to treatment while others do not.
All analyses will be carried out with strict respect for patient privacy, using a method called federated learning, in which the AI models are sent to the hospitals’ data systems rather than moving the data themselves. This ensures that sensitive information remains securely stored at each institution.
By combining medical expertise, artificial intelligence, and large-scale collaboration across Europe, STRATA-FIT aims to make rheumatoid arthritis care more precise and effective, improving the lives of patients and reducing the overall impact of the disease on individuals and healthcare systems.
.
Funded by the European Union (grant agreement no. 101080243). Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Health and Digital Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
The project has also received funding from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) and from Hungary’s National Research, Development and Innovation (NRDI) Fund.