Congratulations to Judith Smith, MD, PhD on her award of $75,000 from the Arthritis National Research Foundation for her 1-year project, “Excess IL-23 production and underlying biochemical mechanisms in ankylosing spondylitis (AS).” The hypothesis of this project is that dysregulated inflammatory responses to the infectious environment predispose to developing AS. The long-term goal is to improve the treatment of AS through greater understanding of pathogenesis.