The technique could one day offer a more effective option than treatments such as steroid injections, hyaluronic acid injections, or even joint replacement surgeries. Danielle Lawry
UW–Madison researchers have developed a promising technique for treating osteoarthritis, which occurs when cartilage in key joints like the knees and hips deteriorates, causing pain and stiffness and impeding mobility.
A team led by William Murphy, a professor of biomedical engineering and orthopedics and rehabilitation, has come up with a new approach that uses therapeutic blood clots activated by messenger RNA. It could one day offer a more effective option than treatments such as steroid injections, hyaluronic acid injections, or even joint replacement surgeries.
“The best-case scenario is that this could be an injectable or implantable treatment for patients who have advanced osteoarthritis,” says Murphy. “This would be an alternative to the existing methods for treatment, which generally don’t show a high level of long-term success.”
Following the lead of his lab’s previous work on mRNA–based vaccines, therapies for spinal cord injuries, and more, the method relies upon mineral-coated microparticles to deliver mRNA that encodes for production of a protein that supports cartilage formation. The team takes samples of liquid bone marrow and blood from a patient, mixes in the microparticles, and then forms the mixture into a blood clot. Then the mRNA-activated clot gets delivered to the site of the damage.
After seeing success in rabbit models, the group will test its treatment strategy in a larger animal model before proceeding toward human clinical trials.
Published in the Summer 2025 issue
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