Taking a step toward discovering the cause of joint disease: Study finds switches near GDF5 gene linked to knee osteoarthritis, hip dysplasia

July 14, 2021

Hips2From the Harvard Gazette: 

"Terence D. Capellini has been interested in how joints work for almost three decades. Part of it is due to personal experience, as he suffered several joint injuries as a college ice hockey player and recently developed knee osteoarthritis. The principal investigator of Harvard’s Developmental and Evolutionary Genetics Lab has also seen the pain and limited mobility of loved ones who have received similar diagnoses and injuries.

It made Capellini, the Richard B. Wolf Associate Professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, wonder: “Why do certain joints naturally acquire some disease while others do not, and why are some joints more prone to injury than others?”

Capellini took a step toward some answers in a recent study on joint disorders published July 6 in Nature Communications. The findings could one day lead to therapeutics for two difficult-to-treat joint disorders that primarily affect the very young and the middle-aged and older." (Read More