Grant: New Investigator Salary Award - PA: Regional Partnerships Program - Saskatchewan

Osteoarthritis is a debilitating skeletal disease that affects at least 50% of humans over 60 years of age. In osteoarthritis, cartilage breaks down at the interacting surfaces of bones (i.e., joints), and its absence causes pain during motion. Osteoarthritis is caused in part by the loss of proteoglycans (PGs, which are sugar-coated proteins) in cartilage matrix. PGs are thought to be important for at least two biological roles of cartilage matrix that are relevant to defects in osteoarthritis patients: tissue integrity and growth factor signalling. Over the course of the New Investigator Salary Award, I will investigate both of these features using a variety of functional genetic and imaging experiments. Also, collaborations are in place to develop cartilage tissue engineering therapies and relate my findings directly to human osteoarthritis.