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Günter Steiner and Josef Smolen have collaborated successfully since 1989 when they discovered a new autoantigen
together. In numerous studies they and other researchers have showed that there are many more autoantibodies involved in
Rheumatoid Arthritis than just the rheumatoid factor.

— We worked together in a network before but AutoCure certainly has provided us with a platform where we have to do European – not national – thinking, says Günter Steiner who thinks highly of this new way to colloborate over the borders. His main research focus is on nuclear autoantigens and he has many ongoing research projects with several AutoCure partners, for example with professor Rikard Holmdahl at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, PI Florence Apparailly at Inserm in Montpellier and PI Margriet
Vervoordeldonk at the AMC in Amsterdam.

— We induce arthritis in rats by injecting pristane oil subcutaneously which allows us to study the development of disease from the beginning and we have seen some amazing patterns in the very first stages of the inflammatory process.

— It´s all still in the lab of course but many things point to the fact that we are on our way to identify some novel autoantigens that also apply for humans. If our joint experiments turn out well we might be able to soon develop new therapeutic
concepts for treating the disease effectively in its early stages and maybe be able to stop the deleterious processes,
says Günter Steiner and adds that a result like that would be a very good proof of the fruitful work in the AutoCure
consortium