RTF X: General Patient Access and CCIM

Coordinators: A. Franke (CAU), B. Hoyer (CCIM, CAU), G. Riemekasten (UzL), S. Schreiber (CAU), D. Thaci (CCIM, UzL), S. Weidinger (CAU)

The research area RTF X facilitates access to patients with chronic inflammatory skin, joint and/or intestinal diseases. They receive interdisciplinary care at the Comprehensive Center for Inflammation Medicine (CCIM), with the goal of early detection of diseases in other organs and identification of correlations in order to achieve optimal success in treatment. At the same time, the clinical data gained and the samples collected (e.g. blood or genetic material) provides a better understanding of the disease.

The Comprehensive Centers for Inflammation Medicine (CCIMs) have excellent networks and are ideally positioned on an interdisciplinary basis. Case conferences, joint consultation hours, clinical studies and own research projects ensure that the patients benefit from the latest findings in fundamental research and clinical research, as well as innovative treatments. The documentation of the manifestations (phenotypes) of the disease, and the infrastructure for recording, processing and evaluating this data and analyzing the biological samples has already been established.

The primary goal is to discover potential biomarkers, which enables clinicians to predict the treatment success or typical comorbidities for the individual patients, to optimize the costs of the treatment, and to make better individualized treatment decisions.

The unique features of the research area include the special access to the patients investigated, with the large number of doctors assigned and the long-term relationship with the CCIMs, which makes long-term observations possible at all, combined with the collection of high-quality clinical data and the findings from laboratory studies.

The members are searching for customized treatments with the earliest possible diagnosis. While doing so, they also maintain a special focus on comorbidities. The data they gain and the samples they collect enables them to facilitate efforts in other research areas, e.g. work on genetic risk profiles (RTF I), investigations of the microbiome (RTF II), possible output parameters (RTF VI) or research on non-genetic factors (nutrition, RTF V).

In RTF X there are close links between dermatology, rheumatology and gastroenterology. In addition, they collaborate with the various biobanks, the Centre for Clinical Studies (ZKS) and research areas RTF I-VII and RTF IX.

What does this research area's work build on?

What are the main research objectives?

What makes this research area special?

What does this research area contribute to Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation?

Cooperation with other research areas in the cluster

Members