Quarterly Newsletter – July 2024 - Issue No.23

Professor Chris Griffiths
GPA Director

Director’s Foreword

The somnolent days of the Northern Hemisphere summer are upon us but although the birds have stopped singing, the wheat is ripening in the fields and most dermatologists are on vacation, and I suspect forgetting to use SPF 50 at the beach, your GPA team remains fully operational. The summer newsletter is packed with news of new arrivals and collaborations, research updates and publications scattered across the world’s dermatology journals.

I am particularly pleased that the Grand Challenges in Global Skin Health programme, under the auspices of the ILDS, is coordinating the work of the four skin atlases, including GPA, notably on progress towards our combined Lancet review article on the importance of inflammatory skin disease and associated medical conditions.

We celebrated the tenth anniversary of the World Health Assembly’s declaration that psoriasis is a serious non-communicable disease, in Geneva in May. The declaration induced the birth of the GPA. Tom Rogers, our new Programme Manager, is leading on the logistics for our planned joint atlases field survey to Southern India in December and we now have excellent on the ground support from Dr Dinesh Kumar and Dr Murlidhar Rajagopalan. The GPA, ILDS and IPC are leading on the application for biosimilar adalimumab and ustekinumab for psoriasis to be added to the WHO’s Essential Medicines List. If successful, this will open up access to biologic therapies for many more people with psoriasis around the world.

One of the many joys of being involved with the GPA is the opportunity to work with future leaders in psoriasis research namely our IPC Fellows. One of the most recent Fellows Jaquelini Barboza da Silva (Brazil) has just had her research on the lived experience of people with psoriasis in Brazil published in the International Journal of Dermatology and Bryan Guevera our current Fellow is performing a similar study in the Philippines. Of note our very first IPC Fellow – Daniela Armijo provides an update in this newsletter on the important work she and Claudia de la Cruz are doing with combined psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis clinics in Santiago.

Important dates for the diary for readers wanting to present their research at and attend the 10 th Congress of Psoriasis: From Gene to Clinic, the deadline for abstracts is 2nd August and the meeting itself will be in London 5th-7th December. There is plenty of time to get writing and to book your travel to London.

I look forward to meeting many of you in person at the EADV Congress in Amsterdam this September. Have a great summer and remember the sunscreen…

With my best wishes,
Chris Griffiths

Professor Darren Ashcroft
GPA Research Director

I’m delighted to update on several recent publications from our GPA team. Firstly, we have worked closely with our Regional Coordinators to examine for the first time the prevalence of psoriasis and atopic dermatitis (AD) among a large cohort of indigenous people in Brazil: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jdv.19984. We found that both psoriasis and AD occurred less frequently in indigenous people than in the population of Brazil as a whole but occurred more commonly in indigenous communities located nearer to urban areas.

Jaquelini Barboza da Silva spent time with the GPA as an International Psoriasis Council (IPC) Fellow and we supported her work examining the lived experience of psoriasis in Brazil which was recently published in the International Journal of Dermatology: https://doi.org/10.1111/ijd.17387. We are currently conducting a similar survey with Dr Bryan Guevara from the Southern Philippines Medical Centre who we are delighted to host this year as another IPC Fellow.

We have also recently published a new study examining the epidemiology, comorbidities, mortality and healthcare use for patients in England with generalized pustular psoriasis and palmoplantar pustulosis compared to those with plaque psoriasis: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjd/ljae217.

Finally, I had the pleasure of presenting on ‘Psoriasis in the UK today’ at the Psoriasis Association Annual Conference in Manchester last month where I shared details of a new research study examining the epidemiology of psoriasis in the UK, and particularly on how this may vary between people from different ethnic groups. Dr Alison Wright (GPA Research Fellow) presented on “Improving the understanding of the worldwide epidemiology of psoriasis to help identify how access to care can be enhanced” at the 7th World Psoriasis & Psoriatic Arthritis Conference in Sweden.

Tom Rogers joined the GPA team in May.

Tom is a proficient Project Manager who has prior experience in healthcare and academia. Tom worked for several years in clinical trial coordination within the NHS before joining The University of Manchester in 2022. Since joining The University and prior to joining the GPA team, he has supported various clinical research studies within musculoskeletal and dermatological sciences as part of the Manchester Biomedical Research Centre.

We are excited to welcome Tom to the team.

Update from Dr Daniela Armijo (left) and GPA Regional Coordinator Dr Claudia De La Cruz (right).

On Saturday 22nd June 2024 Professor Darren Ashcroft presented on ‘Psoriasis in the UK today’ at the Psoriasis Association Annual Conference in Manchester. Professor Ashcroft presented new research examining the epidemiology of psoriasis in the UK, and particularly on how this may vary between people from different ethnic groups.

From the 27th-29th June 2024 Dr Alison Wright (GPA Research Fellow) attended the IFPA Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. The IFPA conference offers a comprehensive experience for anyone involved in psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis research, treatment, and advocacy. It provides an invaluable platform for learning, networking, and advancing the global effort to improve the lives of those affected by psoriatic disease.

Alison presented on the work of the GPA, improving the understanding of the worldwide epidemiology of psoriasis to help identify how access to care can be enhanced. This included providing an update on the systematic review of the worldwide epidemiology of psoriasis, completed and ongoing new population-based cohort studies, skin disease field studies, the epidemiology of generalised pustular psoriasis (GPP), and the GPA online survey examining the lived experience of psoriasis.

Professor Darren Ashcroft presenting at the Psoriasis Association Annual Conference

Dr Alison Wright presenting at the IFPA conference

The GPA Annual Report for year 1 of Phase III (2023-2024) was published in June. The GPA have achieved so much in the past year. Read our report to learn about our research, international collaborations, events and digital developments over the past year.

clxvk6y6h501qbtjls8p1cxuf-gpa-annual-report-2023-2024.pdf (globalpsoriasisatlas.org)

Thank you to the LEO Foundation, IFPA, International League of Dermatological Societies (ILDS) and the International Psoriasis Council (IPC) for their continued support.

GPA Funders Brochure July 2024

The development and ongoing important research conducted by the GPA team is only possible with the funding and support from our collaborators and sponsors. Our updated Partnership Brochure provides detailed information on our support packages and different ways in which you can support the GPA.