STW perspectief grant of 3 million euro to prove that cartilage can repair itself

18 November 2016

“Osteoarthritis cannot be cured” this is mentioned on Wikipedia and in all Rheumatology textbooks. This was already the opinion of the world-famous Scottish anatomist William Hunter in his textbook on joint diseases published in 1741.

“William Hunter Revisited: Activating intrinsic cartilage repair to restore joint homeostasis”

A consortium of 6 Universities and over 10 companies will prove William Hunter wrong in the STW perspectief consortium project “William Hunter Revisited: Activating intrinsic cartilage repair to restore joint homeostasis”. It is the goal of this consortium, together with the Reumafonds, to develop methods that can stimulate intrinsic cartilage repair to stop osteoarthritis. What's more, based on new developments in smart biomaterials, regulation of cellular differentiation, in vivo models and translational research it is the ambition of the consortium to even stimulate the repair of damaged cartilage. The final aim of the consortium is to develop a method, ready for clinical application, that will stimulate intrinsic cartilage repair.

Furthermore, tools will be developed, in a project supervised by Experimental Rheumatology, Peter van der Kraan, theme Inflammatory diseases in collaboration with the Maastricht UMC that can monitor the anabolic and catabolic state of a joint. This will make it possible to select patients with joint damage for either cartilage repair methodology or joint replacement, an enterprise that fits within the ambition of the Radboudumc to strengthen personal medicine.

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