Mark W Grinstaff, Benjamin G Cooper, Benjamin Lakin, Michel Wathier and Brian D Snyder
Boston University, USA
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center- Harvard Medical School, USA
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Bioengineer & Biomedical Sci
Osteoarthritis (OA) is characterized by the breakdown of hyaline cartilage and synovial fluid (SF) in articular joints. This debilitating disease affects 27 million people in the US. An important pathophysiologic change associated with OA is a decrease in the lubricity of SF due to a decrease in both the concentration and molecular weight of hyaluronic acid (HA) which adversely affects the rheological properties of SF. No pharmacologic treatments have been proven to ameliorate the progressive destruction of articular cartilage associated with OA. Currently, HA or crosslinked HA is injected intra-articularly to treat patients (i.e., viscosupplementation), and yet this procedure has major drawbacks: 1) HA is rapidly enzymatically degraded; 2) injected HA has not been shown to reside in the joint for longer than 28 days (half-life of only 8.8 days, even when crosslinked); 3) HA synthesis and purification is costly; and 4) HA has not been demonstrated clinically to prevent cartilage wear, and several meta-analyses of randomized controlled studies have challenged this procedure�s efficacy. To address this unmet need of a treatment for early and mid stage OA, we are synthesizing and evaluating novel synthetic polymers which are designed to specifically lubricate healthy and worn cartilage, provide cushioning, and reside in the joint after intra-articular injection for more than 30 days. In this lecture, I will discuss the synthesis and characterization of two novel biolubricants, the performance of these biolubricants in ex vivo and in vivo models, and the design rationale for this approach.
Journal of Bioengineering & Biomedical Science received 307 citations as per Google Scholar report
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