Stephania Kalegora, a BonePainII PhD student based at the Danish company Nordic Bioscience, had a poster presentation at the OARSI conference in Berlin 7-10 April 2022.  The title of her poster was “A Noval Cathepsin K Mediated Fragment of C-Reactive Protein As a Biomarker for Bone Inflammation”. 

Together with colleagues from Nordic Bioscience Stephania presented a newly developed biomarker designed with the neo-epitope technology from Nordic Bioscience, which is a fragment of CRP protein generated by cathepsin K. This fragment has been shown to be elevated in patients with ankylosing spondylitis and is supposed to reflect bone inflammation related to inflammatory bone marrow lesions. 

The main idea behind the development is that when CRP is accumulated to the inflamed tissue it can be post-translationally modified from the secretion of the different proteases released from the joint. Cathepsin K is mostly secreted by osteoclasts and can cleave CRP and generate a neo-epitope fragment which can be quantified in serum.  

Her fellow PhD student at Nordic Bioscience, Khaled Mohamed, also presented a poster at the conference. The title of his poster was “Establishing a Metabolic Model for Osteoarthritis in Rats”.

Obesity is a risk factor for developing many other diseases. And osteoarthritis is among the conditions that can result in a severe deterioration in the quality of life because of pain in the joints and restricting physical activity. In this research project, Khaled and colleagues aimed to create a metabolic model of osteoarthritis in rats that can help test potential drugs for a disease that yet remains without a treatment. The metabolic model has two main steps: inducing obesity through a diet high in fat and then provoking osteoarthritis through a surgical procedure. Then they monitor how much pain develops, and eventually, they check for how much damage has the joint endured. This work shows that obesity and osteoarthritis are part of one story that needs urgent treatment. This model can be used to test this potential treatment.

• Stefania Kalogera and Khaled Mohamed, BonePainII PhDs students at Nordic Bioscience with colleagues from Nordic Bioscience

• Stefania Kalogera; BonePainII PhD student at Nordic Bioscience