Osteoarthritis is the most common joint disease, and a major economic and healthcare burden, rising in prevalence in an aging and increasingly obese population. Despite a strong genetic component, very few causative genes have been identified for osteoarthritis. To identify genetic determinants of osteoarthritis, the Origins of Bone and Cartilage Disease (OBCD) consortium is phenotyping knockout mice generated by the International Knockout Mouse Consortium. We have developed and used a novel phenotyping pipeline to rapidly quantify the key signs of joint disease in adult knockout mice. We phenotyped 50 mouse knockout lines and have identified genes with strong evidence for involvement in joint disease. Work is now ongoing to elucidate the contribution of key developmental pathways to osteoarthritis.

Biography

Natalie Butterfield is part of the Molecular Endocrinology lab at Imperial College in London. She completed her BSc. and PhD in hedgehog signalling and limb morphogenesis at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience in Brisbane and moved to London to work on limb-type differences in skeletal development at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill. She moved to the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College in 2014. She is currently investigating the genetics of osteoarthritis and the role of key signalling pathways including Wnt, hedgehog and thyroid hormone in bone and joint diseases.

Special Speaker – Dr Natalie Butterfield flyer (PDF)