Aim
The aim of the workshop is to increase awareness of the programme, and encourage research funding applications to A-TAP, which has funds to help pump prime experimental medicine studies. Up to £100k per study will be awarded to Oxford and Birmingham based projects in 2019.

Morning / afternoon sessions
There is an option to attend either the morning session (10am-1pm) or the afternoon session (2pm-5pm). Lunch will be served for all delegates from 1pm-2pm.

Background to the A-TAP
The Kennedy Trust for Rheumatology Research has provided £7M to the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham to create the Arthritis-Therapy Acceleration Programme (A-TAP). The A-TAP is pioneering the development of new experimental medicine strategies using basket trial design and pathology based outcomes to provide early go-no-go decisions in immune mediated inflammatory diseases (including rheumatoid arthritis, Sjögren’s syndrome, spondyloarthropathy and inflammatory bowel disease).

The aim of the A-TAP is to move the field away from the traditional “organ-based, speciality- focussed” approach to experimental medicine to a process-driven, pathway-focussed classification for inflammatory diseases. The A-TAP will facilitate the development of novel treatments based on the underlying causes of inflammatory disease. We are working with industry partners to develop novel proof-of-concept and proof-of-mechanism trials to help us treat the cause of disease and not just their symptoms.