bones
Boldly Going Where No Science Has Gone Before
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
It was an amazing experience to touch base once again with Kate Rubins, a NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station. Connecting via live downlink on March 26, 2021, we discussed how space-based research can enable valuable biomedical advances on our planet. For example, over the past five years, NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences has funded a series of tissue chip payloads that have launched to the orbiting laboratory. Rubins, who is a biologist and infectious disease expert, has facilitated three of these projects: Cardinal Heart from Stanford University, Electrical Stimulation of Human Myocytes in Microgravity from the University of Florida, and Cartilage-Bone-Synovium from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Reprogramming Genes to Keep Joints Healthy
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
![Caption: [Left] The knee joint of a normal mouse that endured an ACL-type injury. The injury triggered osteoarthritis and caused the cartilage on the femur (red) and tibia (green) to degrade, allowing the bones to sandwich together. [Right] This is the knee joint of a mouse that received gene therapy after the ACL injury. The cartilage is thick and healthy, and covers the bones completely, providing a cushion.](http://directorsblog.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/mouse-knee-joints.jpg)
Credit: Brendan Lee and Zhechao Ruan, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics,
Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
Our joints are pretty amazing marvels of engineering, but they don’t last forever. As we age, or if we suffer certain injuries, the smooth, slippery white cartilage covering the ends of our bones begins to fray and degrade. This causes osteoarthritis (OA), or ‘wear-and-tear’ arthritis. As the cartilage thins and disappears, the bones can even grow spurs that grate against each other, causing swelling and pain. It’s a major cause of disability, and there’s currently no cure—other than joint replacement, which is a pretty big deal and isn’t available for all joints. About 27 million Americans already have osteoarthritis; about 1 in 2 will suffer from some form of the disease over their lifetime. Those are lousy odds.
