StemCell Therapy

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. - Things as simple as standing, walking and moving your hands can inflict serious pain on people suffering from arthritis.

"We have treatments for inflammatory arthritis that actually modify the disease, [with] what we call disease-modifying-agents, that actually change the course of the disease and can prevent joint destruction, said Dr. Siegel.

Since the completion of the human genome, combating arthritis can involve a more articulated strategy, where researchers can target specific molecules.

"Now that we know who the players are, we can then try to figure out exactly what they do in different diseases, said Dr. John O'Shea, Scientific Director at NIAMS, NIH. Then you can take a strategy, saying, I think this guy is a bad actor, and so we can make a drug that targets that guy."

Not only can you make a drug that targets specific molecules, but you can repurpose one for it, which is what the NIH is currently trying to do with tofacitinib, a drug initially approved for rheumatoid arthritis and now being tested to treat lupus.

"As serious as these problems are, we should be optimistic that if we keep investing in trying to cure and treat these diseases, that we will succeed, said Dr. OShea.

The CDC projects that by 2025, 67 million people in the U.S. will have arthritis.

Here is the original post:
Debunking common myths about arthritis - WHAG

This entry was posted on May 12, 2017 at 2:41 am and is filed under Arthritis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |