School of Infection & Immunity

Dr Lizzy Rosser

Title:

From synovitis to uveitis: understanding B cell pathology in childhood arthritis

Synopsis:

The term Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) encompasses a heterogeneous group of childhood arthritides with a wide spectrum of outcomes ranging from true drug-free remission to a severe, difficult-to-treat arthritis that is life-long and can cause long-term disability. A proportion of JIA patients also develop uveitis (JIA-uveitis), an inflammatory eye disease. If uveitis isn’t controlled, it can cause permanent vision loss and currently up to 30% of children affected by uveitis will have lost vision in at least one eye by the time they reach adulthood. In this talk, I will discuss my group’s previous and ongoing work aimed at uncovering the role of B cells in the pathology of both synovitis (joint inflammation) and uveitis (eye inflammation) in JIA. Importantly, B cell depleting or targeting drugs are not routinely utilised in clinical practise for the treatment of JIA or JIA-uveitis. In addition, there can be a ten-year lag in the translation therapies from adult autoimmune conditions into childhood conditions despite overlapping pathways controlling inflammation. Our research vision is to close this gap in JIA and its associated uveitis by taking a child-first approach.

Bio:

Lizzy completed her PhD in 2014 at UCL and has since been the recipient of 3 fellowships from Arthritis UK, the Medical Research Foundation and the Kennedy Trust for Rheumatology Research. It was through the Kennedy Trust Senior Research fellowship programme that she was able to establish her research group in UCL’s Division of Medicine in 2022, which aims to uncover how B cells are contributing to inflammation in childhood-onset autoimmune diseases. Complementary research streams include investigating how sex/gender and how the gut-microbiome influence B cell development and function. Alongside her research, Lizzy is a passionate science communicator, early career researcher mentor, and owner of a small allotment in West London.

First published: 12 March 2026

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