Development of an innervated in vitro Osteoarthritis Model for Drug Discovery and Drug Screening

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a painful and disabling disease of the joints. It principally affects the hands, hips and knees and is very common in most countries. It is estimated that over 250 million people have osteoarthritis which has a significant impact on global economies and healthcare systems. Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis in the UK, (around 8.75 million) affecting around a third of people aged 45 and over. Within the next 10 years, the number of people with osteoarthritis is predicted to rise substantially as we are living longer and cases of obesity, which is linked to osteoarthritis, are also increasing. Currently, most treatments for osteoarthritis are restricted to pain relief. There are no drugs on the market that can reverse the disease or even halt its progression. Ultimately, most patients require a total joint replacement. Since osteoarthritis is a complex disease, involving many different types of cells and tissues in the joint, finding and testing new drugs to treat osteoarthritis is very complex as it is difficult to replicate osteoarthritis in the laboratory. Our project will advance a developed model of osteoarthritis to include nerve cells in order to assess novel pain-relieving drugs, vital for the control of the disease, assess the effectiveness of drugs in treating the disease and aid in the replacement of animal testing for new osteoarthritis therapies. The tissues within the model represent different parts of a human joint, bone and cartilage which will be "printed" with nerve cells, producing the 3D model of osteoarthritis. Compounds will activate the disease process, including neural activation and drugs will be introduced to evaluate their ability to stop or reverse osteoarthritis and pain sensitisation. Our model will advance the identification of effective osteoarthritis drugs, improving significantly on existing laboratory tests and current small animal models.