This year’s Avrion Mitchison Prize for the best research work in rheumatology is awarded to Corinna Wehmeyer. She will present her research on the occasion of the award ceremony on December 6, 2016.

Corinna Wehmeyer produced her award-winning work at the Institute of Experimental Musculoskeletal Medicine at the Münster University Hospital, where she worked as a researcher until May 2016 before moving to the University of Birmingham in September 2016. In her lecture, “Loss of Wnt inhibitor sclerostin promotes TNF-dependent inflammatory bone destruction,” Wehmeyer explains that sclerostin, known as a bone loss mediating molecule, also seems to have a protective role in TNF-mediated inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. Using sclerostin inhibitors to treat the bone loss increases the inflammation and aggravates disease progression. Unlike in the case of osteoporosis patients, caution should be taken when considering anti-sclerostin antibodies treatment in patients with rheumatoid arthritis or with chronic TNF-dependent comorbidities.