VIDEO Researchers aim to cure osteoarthritis within 5 years by developing treatment that allows joints to regenerate

For the millions of people around the world who suffer from the painful and debilitating effects of osteoarthritis, a groundbreaking new research project offers tantalizing hope. Led by a team of top scientists, the project has an ambitious goal: to develop, within five years, a suite of non-invasive therapies to solve the problem of osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis, the third most common disease in the United States, affects about one in six people over the age of 30 worldwide.

As the population ages and becomes more sedentary, these numbers are expected to rise.

The disease destroys the cartilage that cushions the joints, making bone-to-bone movement of the joints painful. Over time, bones can become deformed and damaged.

Currently, there is no treatment.

Treatment options are limited to pain management and, when this is no longer sufficient, joint replacement surgery.

But imagine a day when your joints could heal themselves.

A research group in Colorado, United States, is determined to do just that after receiving up to $39 million in funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H).

“Within five years, our goal is to develop a suite of noninvasive therapies that can end osteoarthritis,” project leader Stephanie Bryant, a professor at CU Boulder, said in a university statement.

“This is one of the most debilitating diseases out there, and it leaves people unable to work or do the things they love,” says Bryant.

It could be a game-changer for patients, she says.

The team comprised of researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder, CU Anschutz Medical Campus and Colorado State University (CSU). addresses the problem on two fronts: both at the level of biological and structural problems that characterize osteoarthritis.

On the biological side, some of the researchers on this project’s team have spent 15 years developing and testing a drug that persuades cartilage and bone cells to produce the proteins they need to rebuild themselves.

There is one problem though. Currently, daily injections are required.

Top American researchers are working on a five-year project to develop a treatment that would allow joints to regenerate

That’s why the interdisciplinary US team is working with materials researchers who have more than two decades of experience developing 3D gel-like biomaterials that can slip into the cracks of damaged cartilage and bone, providing a supportive scaffold for the body’s cells to migrate and to repair the tissue.

Meanwhile, CSU scientists have perfected gene therapy techniques to control inflammation and speed cartilage healing.

Now, with the help of ARPA-H funding, the team can finally use all these resources to solve an important health problem.

The challenge they face is devising methods to deliver these regenerative therapies into the body in a way that provides lasting benefits and can treat multiple joints at once, if necessary.

Their solution? Nanoparticles that can be administered intravenously, serving as tiny Trojan horses that migrate to inflamed joints and deliver a healing cocktail that allows the body to repair itself.

The team’s ultimate goal is to commercialize three innovations: a single healing injection that can stop joint damage and stimulate regeneration; a wound repair hydrogel for more advanced cases; and an annual infusion for the systemic treatment of osteoarthritis throughout the body.

Within 3.5 years, the team hopes to begin testing on human patients.

However, developing these treatments is only half the battle, says one of the researchers at CU Anschutz.

“Essentially, the goal of this project is to develop a therapy that will be available to everyone, not just a privileged few,” said Karin Payne, associate professor at CU Anschutz, one of the lead authors.

The researchers plan to include a demographically diverse group of participants in the study and work to minimize costs to ensure treatments are as accessible and affordable as possible.

The Colorado team is one of five teams to receive an award under the ARPA-H: Novel Innovations for Tissue Regeneration in Osteoarthritis (NITRO) program, the new federal agency’s first initiative aimed at tackling some of the most challenging problems in health of American society.

Although there is still a long way to go, for the millions of people who suffer from osteoarthritis, this ambitious project offers hope that one day a simple injection could eliminate their pain and restore their freedom of movement.

The dream that joints could heal themselves may not be so far-fetched after all, the researchers involved in this project conclude.