Researchers at Colorado State University are working to improve the day-to-day lives of people and animals suffering from osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint condition that causes pain, swelling, and stiffness, affecting a person’s ability to move freely. The condition limits movement and activity for more than 500 million people worldwide and is cited as the leading cause of euthanasia in dogs. Laurie Goodrich, professor of orthopedics in the CSU Department of Clinical Sciences, Felix Duerr, professor of small animal orthopedics in the CSU Department of Clinical Sciences and Jaiden Oropallo, Bioengineering PhD student in the CSU School of Biomedical Engineering, are working to develop new treatment options for osteoarthritis through gene therapy—the reprogramming of cells—in companion animals.
Current osteoarthritis treatments focus primarily on pain relief. Goodrich, Duerr and Oropallo want to address the fundamental issue behind the disease—inflammation—using gene therapy to produce protein-based therapeutics. Protein-based therapeutics describes medicines that use genetically engineered versions of naturally occurring animal or human proteins. Their team is working to develop and engineer specific proteins to enhance their therapeutic performance and effectiveness in treatment.
As a translational scientist, Goodrich and Duerr seek to develop medical solutions that benefit both animals and people. After perfecting their treatment in the laboratory, the team will move to a larger clinical trial to test the efficacy in canine patients with naturally-occurring osteoarthritis. Their goal is to develop a startup company around the technology to drive real-world social and economic impact through future treatment in animals and, eventually, humans.
In 2023, Goodrich and Oropallo received funding from the Advanced Industries Proof of Concept Grant Program to advance their research. “This funding has allowed us to really start the project. Before this, we were not able to design as many protein variants as we wanted, and we weren’t able to test them as efficiently as we hoped, so this funding has helped us lay the groundwork for our preclinical and clinical trials that will be starting in the future,” said Oropallo.
Advanced Industries funds are provided to CSU through the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade with the goal of accelerating commercialization of innovations with high potential for creating economic impact in the state of Colorado. Learn more about the grant program at csustrata.org/technology-transfer/ai-poc-grant.