Grant: Operating Grant

Back pain is one of the most predominant health complaints, effecting nearly 15% of Canadians. In addition to significant economic costs due to healthcare expenses and reduced productivity, back pain has a debilitating effect on an individual's physical and mental health, functional capacity and overall quality of life. Progressive degeneration of the intervertebral discs in the spine is frequently associated with low back pain. Unfortunately, our understanding of how the disc degeneration develops, progresses and can be treated is still limited. As a result, treatment is based on trial and error and invasive produces, including surgery, are performed with inconsistent clinical benefits. A deeper understanding of the pathological mechanisms will contribute to improved treatment for people living with back pain. We propose a series of complementary, pre-clinical and human studies combining our unique, well-characterized SPARC-null mouse model of disc degeneration-related back pain with clinical data and tissue samples obtained from human patients. Conducting analogous pre-clinical and clinical studies guarantees that the results of the proposed studies will be clinically-relevant.