OA-ANGIO-ANALGESIA

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic degenerative joint disease which affects 630 M people worldwide. There is currently no specific cure for OA. Recent exploration of the mechanisms involved in OA has highlighted the contribution of an important phenomenon: the angiogenesis, i.e. the development of new vessels in the whole affected joints. This mechanism participates to OA symptoms and the joint structural damages. Our innovative project proposes to target angiogenesis (never exploited as a therapeutic target for OA) with vascular disrupting agents (VDA inhibit the tubulin assembly causing a rapid change in shape of endothelial cells, resulting in selective neovasculature shutdown) to prevent OA progression. We anticipate that VDA may also be beneficial to relieve osteoarthritic pain. The ambition of this project is to develop first-in-class new chemical entities. This multidisciplinary project will benefit from the complementary expertise of two institutions (Chemistry/Pharmacology).