The rheumatology program of the Johns Hopkins University is multidisciplinary in its integrated educational, research and patient-care activities and is multi-institutional in its base. Basic to our program design has been the first priority to provide sound educational experience in clinical and investigative rheumatology for trainees at every level and across disciplinary lines. At the affiliate Good Samaritan Hospital, a demonstration Rheumatic Disease Unit has been developed which is pivotal to our training programs and clinical research and serves as the primary interface of a collaborative inter-university program of education with the University of Maryland which has been operative for the first eighteen months. The proposed Arthritis Center will (1) further explore the objectives of this collaboration and establish the feasibility of "regionalizing" training and research activities as well as patient care, (2) foster continuance and expansion of our research in genetic and immunologic mechanisms of rheumatic disease as well as in orthopaedic-rheumatology and health care systems, and (3) further bridge any institutional/community gaps through the interdesciplinary and non-professional educational process.