Led by Professor Adam Croft, the UK Tissue Research In Childhood Inflammatory Arthritis (TRICIA) consortium, is a collaborative network of scientists, clinicians, and patient partners across four academic institutions: the University of Birmingham, University College London, the University of Oxford and the University of Manchester. Our network is led by experts with expertise in epidemiology, pathophysiology, data science and bioinformatics.

Our objective is to build capacity within UK paediatric rheumatology to perform synovial tissue biopsy studies and address the unmet need for synovial tissue research in juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA).

We have already established a network of clinical centres that can perform minimally invasive synovial tissue biopsies during routine joint injection procedures, as successfully tested in the MAPJAG study which is currently recruiting patients at two clinical sites: Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital (BWCH) and Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH).

We are committed to expanding our network and developing a deeper understanding of JIA and will establish a national and international infrastructure with the necessary expertise to perform, gather, process, and analyse synovial tissue from children and young adults with JIA. Our goal is to set up a synovial tissue biopsy program in at least three new clinical locations and expand our existing program at two established centres, GOSH and BWCH, to include older children and adolescents.