Arthritis Foundation Funds New OA Research

The Arthritis Foundation recently announced three new grant recipients for osteoarthritis (OA) research as part of the Osteoarthritis Clinical Trials Network (OACTN). Each will receive up to $300,000 over three years to support their OA studies. The awardees were selected from among eight applicants through a rigorous peer review process.

“We are excited about the opportunity to expand both the scope of the work and the institutional presence for our OACTN network,” says Maria T. Vassileva, PhD, Senior Vice President of Science Strategy for the Arthritis Foundation.

OA is by far the most common type of arthritis, affecting more than 32 million Americans, yet there are currently no effective treatments for the disease. We at the Arthritis Foundation have made a major commitment to backing and facilitating OA translational and clinical research, and the 2021 OACTN grants are an important part of that.
 

The first awardee, Suneel Apte, MBBS, DPhil, a former orthopedic surgeon, is a professor in Cleveland Clinic’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and member of its Musculoskeletal Research Center. His research focuses on biochemical markers in knees that will help define the stages of disease progress. His team plans to collect data that will serve as the biochemical “fingerprint” of knee cartilage and synovial fluid at different stages, from injury to established OA, plus a control group. The resulting library of biochemical “fingerprints” is intended to show differences in patients without arthritis to those with it at different stages. These differences are intended to help researchers identify biochemical targets for the development of treatments and, more specifically, which participants to include in trials, ultimately helping to streamline and accelerate research for new OA treatments.

 


 

The second awardee, Reza Jafarzadeh, DVM, PhD, and his team hope to find drugs used for non-arthritic conditions that might be help prevent OA from developing, even after a joint injury. An epidemiologist, assistant professor of medicine and member of the Arthritis & Autoimmune Diseases Research Center at Boston University, Dr. Jafarzadeh will examine large study databases involving several drugs to see if they also have an effect on OA. These include mast cell-inhibiting drugs used to treat asthma that might also reduce OA inflammation and pain; beta-blocker drugs used to reduce blood pressure, which may also reduce OA pain; and an anticonvulsant medication, which may be effective for inflammation and pain. Based on previous research and biochemical processes, “All are biologically compelling,” he writes in his grant proposal. Using medical databases and drugs prescribed for other diseases to find potential benefit to OA is a promising drug-discovery strategy. Recently, a drug being investigated to treat cardiovascular disease, canakinumab, was coincidentally found to reduce the number of joint replacements among study participants.

 
 

The third awardee, Abbey Thomas, PhD, proposes a new approach to rehabilitation after ACL reconstruction that may help prevent post-traumatic OA (PTOA). Dr. Thomas, an assistant professor of kinesiology at UNC-Charlotte, and her team have devised a tool designed to measure a patient’s knee flexion during exercises. The tool is a wearable device with a common laser pointer that will be used to help patients visualize and retain better biomechanics after ACL surgery. The study will examine whether that will result in healthier femoral cartilage, ultimately reducing the risk of developing PTOA.

These are the most recent additions of sites participating in the OA Clinical Trials Network, which the Arthritis Foundation seeded in 2018 to accelerate OA research and find new discoveries to help people living with the disease. The OACTN brings together investigators in different disciplines, from biochemistry to sports medicine, representing 12 academic and medical institutions. Network members not only share technology and information, but they also collaborate on projects as a way of increasing the numbers of trial participants, which accelerates and improves the quality of their trials. A coordinating center for the OACTN network is being planned for 2022.

Learn about other OACTN scientists and find a clinical trial for arthritis to participate in.