Autoimmunity Center of Excellence (ACE)
Overview
The Oklahoma Autoimmunity Center of Excellence (OACE) connects OMRF to top-tier research and clinical sites devoted to improving the lives of patients with autoimmune diseases through research. The OACE is one of only eight such centers in the United States; the others are at Emory, the Feinstein Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, and Weill Cornell Medical College. Collectively, these Centers focus on understanding the biology of autoimmune disease flares in order to improve the lives of autoimmune disease patients through better diagnosis, clinical trial design, therapeutic development, and treatment selection.
The overarching goal of the OACE is to understand the biology of autoimmune diseases at the molecular level so that we can identify more similar patient subsets to aid clinical trials, inform treatment development, and improve patient outcomes. We do this by integrating the work of basic scientists and clinical investigators to better understand mechanisms of autoimmune disease heterogeneity, applying our expertise in designing and performing ACE Network Clinical Studies, and cultivating collaborations with other ACE sites.
Funding for the research is provided by grant No. UM1AI144292 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
