The A3BC is delighted to be part of a national collaborative group who received funding in the NHMRC MRFF 2021 Chronic Musculoskeletal Conditions in Children and Adolescents grant scheme. $2.5 million has been awarded for A3BC for Kids, an Australia-wide project that aims to improve health outcomes for children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), the most common chronic inflammatory musculoskeletal condition in children. Minister of Health, the Hon Greg Hunt MP announced the success as part of a $21.6M research funding announcement for juvenile idiopathic arthritis and other chronic musculoskeletal diseases in children.
The centrepiece is a clinical trial, the CHAMPION (Child Hood Arthritis Multi-omic Predictions Improving Outcomes Nationally) Taper Trial, which aims to advance precision medicine by determining when, how, and in whom to withdraw disease modifying and biologic drugs (DMARDs), once the inflammatory disease is under control and inactive. Several workstreams will be enabled to deliver more effective use of DMARDs, new Living Guidelines for JIA, improved well-being for children and families, with the potential for millions of dollars in savings through better understanding of the health economics of precision medicine approaches in JIA. A broad range of self-reported, biological, environmental and health data will be collected from participants across Australia, forming part of the national A3BC biobank-registry resource of biospecimens and data for driving arthritis and autoimmune disease research.
A large and diverse team of 25 investigators are involved with a wealth of expertise and experience across the fields of rheumatology, translational immunology, multi-omics, clinical trials, biobanking, statistics, bioinformatics, health economics and guideline/policy development. All major JIA treatment centres, along with leading public and private paediatric rheumatologists are engaged as investigators and partners across 5 states (NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, SA) and the ACT. The project links to a wider partnership through the Australian Paediatric Rheumatology Group and has the support of leading consumer advocates for JIA, including Arthritis Australia, Musculoskeletal Australia, Juvenile Arthritis Foundation Australia (JAFA) and Dragon Claw.
