Dr. Salvatore Albani, director of UA’s Arthritis Center in Tucson is developing a synthetic peptide that will be safer and less expensive, offering more relief for those who are debilitated by crippling rheumatoid arthritis. This autoimmune disease uses the body’s own immune system, which in healthy individuals protects the body, to inflame joints. Dr. Albani is creating an immune modulation therapy that causes the immune system to control the mechanisms that cause inflammation, pain and swelling that damage the body and will not suppress the immune system with adverse side effects. The hope is that this will be a pill that is taken daily and perhaps at some point the patients will be able to discontinue it’s use after the peptide’s do their work inducing long lasting tolerance of the disease.