BTCure (Be The Cure)
The development of new therapeutic agents against Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and RA-like diseases requires a dynamic interaction between studies in humans and in animal models of disease.
The PhD project How should incidental findings in biobank research and genome sequencing studies be handled? is a part of CRB's work package.
Aims
BTCure aims to advance this parallel work and bring it to a new level by recognising (1) the need for recognition of pre-symptomatic and emerging disease in humans; (2) the heterogeneous nature of human RA and RA-like diseases; (3) the need for new alignments between several animal models and the variants of human RA and RA-like disease and (4) the potentials that an increased understanding of adaptive immunity provides for better prevention, therapy and eventual cure of RA.
With these tools at hand, we will be able to use new understanding of aetiology and early pathology of human disease for a program aimed at early and curative treatment of human RA and RA-like diseases.
Funding
This project was funded by Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) from 2011 through 2017.
About BTCure
- BTCure (Be The Cure) focuses on Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and RA-like diseases.
- BTCure has 33 partners. It is co-ordinated by professor Lars Klareskog, Karolinska Institutet and Professor Tom Huizinga, Leiden University Medical Centre
- CRB are part of a subroject on ethics in the work package (WP5) on ethical issues and dissemination, led by professor Steffen Gay, University Hospital Zürich. The ethics subproject will address ethical aspects of the project and foster patient participation.
- BTCure has received funding from the IMI call on Inflammation – Translational Research and Adaptive Immunity.
Contact AT CRB
- Mats G. Hansson, Professor of Biomedical Ethics
- Deborah Mascalzoni, PhD Bioethics, Senior researcher
- Jennifer Viberg, PhD student
Biobanks and registries in research

We aim for a biobank and registry management that satisfies ethical and legal demands from the research community, the public and the individual.
Arthritis risk communication

Euro-TEAM is a 7th framework programme aiming towards early diagnosis and biomarker validation in arthritis management. We are working with risk communication.
Citizen health in genomics

We are part of CHIP ME, a community of researchers and stakeholders to promote public-private initiatives in public health genomics.
Biobank and registry ethics & law
For many years, researchers at CRB have provided constructive advise on how to deal with ethical and legal aspects of research using human tissue material and personal data. We have collaborated with biomedical scientists and published our findings in peer reviewed journals. As a summary of this research we have compiled a list of publications with abstracts. We have grouped them thematically to help you find the ones you might be interested in reading. Our publications deal with ethical frameworks and policy, regulatory aspects of biobank and registry research, informed consent, ethical review, integrity concerns, trust, genetic testing, indicental findings, commercialization, public and patient perceptions, rare diseases, children & biobanks & genetics, and biobank studies.
