Edinburgh Napier University

  Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most important ageing-related musculoskeletal disease, affecting almost 9 million people in the UK. Despite this, there remain many unanswered questions in our understanding of healthy and pathological joint ageing. As such, defining the molecular mechanisms underpinning articular cartilage degeneration in OA development will enable strategies for improving life-long health and wellbeing.

My previous research has shown that in a murine model of ageing-related OA, the articular cartilage chondrocytes undergo a switch from their inherently stable phenotype to a transient one. Moreover, I revealed an association between growth abnormalities and OA predisposition. This project will build upon this work and using in vivo and in vitro models of OA, molecular biology technologies and epidemiological statistical modelling, will determine whether (1) abnormal growth dynamics can predict OA onset (2) inhibiting chondrocyte transiency can prevent OA progression (3) stabilising the articular cartilage phenotype can treat OA disease.