Gene and protein expression of osteoarthritic bone
Research type
Research Study
Full title
How does gene and protein expression, of collagen, affect the chemical and material properties of osteoarthritic bone?
IRAS ID
245607
Contact name
Jemma Kerns
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Lancaster University
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Osteoarthritis (OA) is increasingly prevalent, internationally (9.6% of females and 18% males have osteoarthritis globally), and in an ageing population these numbers will continue to increase, with significant impact on individuals’ quality of life and healthcare economics. There is an unmet clinical need to identify individuals at risk of painful, debilitating bone disorders, to enable early diagnosis in order to mitigate impact of disease, reduce pain and increase quality of life. This project aims to find out more progression of OA, with the potential for discovering new therapeutic targets. As we get older our bones degenerate, and may cause joints to become very painful, particularly hips, knees and fingers. We don’t really know what causes these changes. My previous work in this area suggests it may be caused by a defective protein in the bone. We need to do some more research to test this idea.
This project aims to assess how bone genetics and chemistry changes, and how this affects the hardness of bone, and the cause of the changes when comparing healthy to osteoarthritic bone. This will be achieved by measuring the chemical and material changes of bone in these diseases and measuring the production and expression of the defective protein to determine its contribution to diseases processes.REC name
London - Stanmore Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/1129
Date of REC Opinion
2 Jul 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion