[HN Gopher] Scientists find a way to regrow cartilage in mice an...
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Scientists find a way to regrow cartilage in mice and human tissue
samples
Author : saikatsg
Score : 223 points
Date : 2026-01-21 18:05 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencedaily.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencedaily.com)
| blakesterz wrote:
| Of course, why are the good ones always in mice?
| A study led by Stanford Medicine researchers has found that an
| injection blocking a protein linked to aging can reverse the
| natural loss of knee cartilage in older mice.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I guess we should pay scientist to look into the human-to-mice
| transformation problem
| random3 wrote:
| This :))) or the other way around
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
| seydor wrote:
| We live in the Matrix, and Mice are the overlords.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| "A chemical is something that causes cancer in lab mice."
|
| By analogy, "A drug is something that cures cancer in lab
| mice."
| trebligdivad wrote:
| It's all that wheel running, terrible on the knees.
| irishcoffee wrote:
| Douglas Adams continues to be ahead of his time.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| If only a small percentage of studies make it past the mice
| stage to be tested on humans, it means that a lot more studies
| have been done on mice than humans. Hence, we know more about
| mouse biology than human biology. So over time, it must get
| easier and easier to generate positive results in mice, which
| are uncorrelated with the success in humans.
| spwa4 wrote:
| It's worse than that. People get to interfere in mice. You
| can stunt their growth, give them transparent skin, grow more
| or less limbs, cut into them ... you can't experiment at all
| on humans.
|
| Especially when it comes to pregnancies we know more about a
| lot of animals than about humans. Why? Well pregnancies is
| how you multiply meat in animals, which is what farmers are
| interested in (and pay for). Which ironically also means
| animal pregnancies can be treated in case of trouble much
| more effectively.
|
| Why pregnancies? Pregnancy changes a LOT of chemical
| processes in the body and so quite a bit of "normal" medical
| knowledge doesn't apply to pregnant women. Which has caused
| the medical establishment to declare anything that isn't
| explicitly tested on pregnant women as a no-go zone. So even
| problems and medications that we do know about, doctors won't
| apply them to pregnant women.
| tominous wrote:
| Yes there are metabolic changes in the mother herself
| during pregnancy but that's not why it's hard to research.
| The main fear is that drugs will cross the placenta and
| affect the growing fetus, or similarly be transmitted
| through breast milk to an infant. Very young humans are
| uniquely vulnerable to disruption in their growth that can
| cause life-long problems.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| It's because Mickey Mouse has enough money to fund a lot of
| medical research, and he's not stingy.
| tima101 wrote:
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adx6649
|
| A small molecule inhibitor of 15-hydroxy prostaglandin
| dehydrogenase causes cartilage regeneration. I hope they fast-
| track it to human trials.
| fraserharris wrote:
| "Phase 1 clinical trials of a 15-PGDH inhibitor for muscle
| weakness have shown that it is safe and active in healthy
| volunteers. Our hope is that a similar trial will be launched
| soon to test its effect in cartilage regeneration" - Helen
| Blau, Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology & the Donald E.
| and Delia B. Baxter Foundation Professorship
| mobilejdral wrote:
| ERa activation promotes PGE2 resulting in decreased 15-PGDH.
|
| So this is one of those standard poor estrogen signaling
| downstream things and simply improving the estrogen signaling
| and you get improved cartilage. Anyone can do this today
| along with getting all of the other positive effects. Those
| with EDS who have say variants on their TNXA/B have poor
| production ability to start and so we do everything we can to
| improve their cartilage production as they can only make so
| much which include doing stuff like this.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| EDS and arthritis go together so I wonder if we could see
| secondary effects on other EDS symptoms like subluxation or
| GI issues?
| amluto wrote:
| > Anyone can do this today
|
| Please explain
| RealityVoid wrote:
| Yes, I deff want this explained, since I'm missing about
| half of my meniscus.
| robocat wrote:
| They already have a human trial in progress...
|
| It is being trialed to prevent muscle weakness and some of
| those patients will have arthritis and they can be assessed for
| statistical improvement.
|
| Same thing happened with GLP1
| llmslave wrote:
| basically every growth process in the body can be induced by
| chemicals. and so now people are starting to take some of these
| chemicals. we will see how it turns out
| jleyank wrote:
| As long as regrowth can be controlled. Otherwise we call it
| cancer. Would be amazing to get a treatment for osteoarthritis.
| deburo wrote:
| You should check out Michael Levin. Cancerous cells do not grow
| organ-like structures. Normal cells communicate with other
| cells as a network to control growth.
| da02 wrote:
| I had good results with hyaluronic acid for knee
| osteoarthritis. Sometimes they sell it as Type II Collagen.
| "Source Naturals Hyaluronic Joint Complex" was the best for my
| relatives/friends' knee problems. I take it a few times a month
| (with resveratrol) for smooth skin. I have been taking it since
| 2008 without any negative result.
| kenjackson wrote:
| How does Type II Collagen work for patella tendonitis? I have
| jumpers knee (chronic) and would love to find something that
| helps -- even a little.
| da02 wrote:
| Seems like it should work. I do not have experience with
| that condition. A quick search online (patella tendonitis
| hyaluronic acid) yielded this study:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22526713/
|
| So they are using hyaluronic acid injections for patella
| tendonitis. Taking hyaluronic acid orally would probably
| take longer for effects compared to injections. Most people
| would prefer the injections because they feel safer for a
| doctor to do all the work. I prefer the tablets. If you
| have the money, I guess go for the injections. I would use
| the H.A. tablets. (With a tall glass of water, and do _not_
| take at the same time as blood-thinning medication, like
| pain killers or drugs.)
| arjie wrote:
| Fusion Power
|
| Cartilage Regrowth
|
| Room Temperature Semiconductors
|
| Quantum Computing def generate(topic, year):
| return f"Scientists have made a major breakthrough in {topic}"
|
| The only subjects that are more Year Of The Linux Desktop than
| Linux itself.
| legohead wrote:
| Battery tech
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| Blockchain & DeFi!
|
| Bingo!
|
| :-D
| bramhaag wrote:
| Don't forget about Alzheimer's disease
| razingeden wrote:
| I'm familiar with Helen Blau, her team is into everything:
| telomeres and aging, reversing cardiomyopathy, HIV, that team
| is really hardcore into prolonging and improving lives and
| wellness.
|
| Heard.
|
| But if even one of their interests panned out it would be
| paradigm changing for millions and they're doing it to save
| your lives not get a updoot on hacker news. They're all pretty
| anonymous and understated Imo but _i_ am a great fan and i
| would love for it to be the "year of" anything they're
| studying. I listed a few and I'm sure there's dozens I'm
| unaware of.
|
| I've been thinking that this stuff is all more closely related
| than we think and that as they go down one of these paths
| they're finding all this other stuff along the way, it's
| genuinely fascinating.
|
| Heart disease and failure is one of the biggest ways we meet
| our ends right now. There's so much interplay between aging
| processes, ceasing t-cell production, shortening telomeres ,
| that ties in together with this and im glad they see a bigger
| picture than me having another 20 years , too winded to stand
| up and piss or strapped to a bed hooked to tubes and groaning!
| carlmr wrote:
| >Year Of The Linux Desktop
|
| After Win11 Microsoft really did all they could to get us there
| this year.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I feel it's unfair to ding Linux on this, even with the implied
| "slightly less".
|
| I've had Windows as my main _personal_ computer for practically
| forever, because of games. Before that it was DOS. That changed
| a couple months ago.
|
| Literally just now--in preparation for this comment--I decided
| to try something I never tried before: I mounted my Win10
| drive, picked an arbitrary old Windows game EXE (2006 "Prey"
| game demo), and launched it as a "non-Steam game" with just one
| little drop-down menu tweak... and it launched! I may get 10
| FPS instead of 200, but that's more than I expected off the
| bat.
|
| In the the "years of the Linux desktop" of my youth, I wasn't
| nearly as optimistic. In terms of more-recent games, I have
| little reason to keep my old drive for dual-boot purposes
| except for specific games that go out of their way to interfere
| with clumsy anti-cheat rootkits.
| ss2003 wrote:
| I think 'room temperature semiconductors' have been around for
| a while.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| Not if _Intel_ has anything to say about it!
| mediaman wrote:
| Survivor bias of those things that haven't been solved.
|
| Notably absent:
|
| The fat pill HIV fix Cystic fibrosis
|
| We make fun of the stuff that hasn't been solved yet ("It's
| always ten years away!") while ignoring the things that were
| previously always ten years away until scientists cracked it.
| akoboldfrying wrote:
| Also AMT-130 for Huntington's disease.
| com2kid wrote:
| Back on /. (way back when!) I read an article about optic nerve
| regrowth in mice. IIRC a lattice was built, stem cells shot
| onto it, and some other stuff was done, and a new optic nerve
| ended up growing.
|
| It involved removing the poor mouses existing eye, so there was
| no net gain (still had a mouse with only 1 working eye), but I
| was hopeful progress would be made so I could get myself a
| working optic nerve.
|
| Nope. No progress in 20+ years. Someone got a paper published
| and went on and did something else.
|
| It is a relatively uncommon problem, for ~98% of children with
| a problem with their optic nerve, patching the opposite eye
| works to force the optic nerve to grow. I'm in the (un)lucky
| 2%!
|
| Admittedly not the worst rare health problem to have.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The discovery of gerozymes is interesting. Maybe aging is pre-
| programmed after all, to make space for new generations.
| clickety_clack wrote:
| Would this work for rheumatoid arthritis? I don't know anything
| about it myself so it could be a completely different thing, but
| someone I know has it and it is awful. Would be great to see a
| treatment coming through.
| 331c8c71 wrote:
| ra is autoimmune
| surfsvammel wrote:
| My dream is to be able to run again. Please. Let me run a 10k at
| least once more in my life. To feel that stillness and freedom
| and calm that sets in when the brain start going to hibernation
| after about 7km.
|
| That would be quiet something to feel that again.
| pegasus wrote:
| Hope you see your dream realized. But know that that stillness
| is achievable through other activities as well. Most directly
| and deeply, through a meditation practice which is geared
| towards reaching those deep meditation states (called Jhanas in
| the Pali canon). My favorite guide on that particular path is
| Leigh Brasington.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Can you swim? This is the only thing besides running that gets
| me there.
| cromulent wrote:
| A Concept 2 rowing machine can also do this (in my
| experience). No impact, similar to swimming.
| levl289 wrote:
| I've had my shoulders "cleaned up" arthroscopically, and the pain
| is still a major preventer of movement. I would love to stay on
| the mats longer with something that doesn't harken to medieval
| times. So excited at this prospect.
| glitchc wrote:
| It does get better with physio and exercise. Took me twenty
| years to recover full (100%) pain-free mobility. It still
| occasionally finds itself in an uncomfortable spot that can be
| self-freed, but it can now hold muscle tone across the fascia.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| HN posts about mouse studies always trigger a bunch of
| skepticism. I'm a layperson so it's hard to separate the informed
| comments from me-too contrarians.
|
| Are there areas of medicine where mouse models have a much higher
| or lower success rate in human trials?
| okaram wrote:
| There's two issues, success rate (about 5%) and time ... even
| if it is successful in humans, it will be 5 to 10 years before
| it's available (and 20-30 before it's affordable)
|
| This is not being a contrarian, but a realist.
| d3rockk wrote:
| To be fair, this same realist perspective seems to suggest
| humans would not have been capable of developing a COVID
| vaccine for 5 to 10 years; yet, they identified the virus and
| authorized vaccine use within eight months.
| mrexroad wrote:
| Not to diminish the accomplishment of rolling out the Covid
| vaccine in such a rapid timeframe, but... there was
| something like 40+ years of research into creating mRNA
| vaccines that laid the ground work.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > and 20-30 before it's affordable
|
| Not if pharma execs and shareholders have anything to say
| about that
| samus wrote:
| It has also been tested in cartilage samples from knee
| replacement surgeries.
| chkaloon wrote:
| Years and years away unfortunately. Many trials and chances for
| failure on the human side.
|
| It's discouraging to see these on HN and then realize that most
| never go anywhere, or are so far out you may not see it in your
| lifetime.
|
| Maybe we should flag anything not already in a phase 3 trial :)
| capitainenemo wrote:
| Well, the article notes that it seemed effective on human
| tissue samples. The researchers also tested
| cartilage taken from patients undergoing total knee replacement
| for osteoarthritis. After one week of treatment with the
| 15-PGDH inhibitor, the tissue showed fewer 15-PGDH-producing
| chondrocytes, reduced expression of cartilage degradation and
| fibrocartilage genes, and early signs of articular cartilage
| regeneration.
|
| So, IMO that shows hope for once it goes to trials.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| >Human cartilage samples taken from knee replacement surgeries
| also responded positively. These samples included both the
| supportive extracellular matrix of the joint and cartilage-
| producing chondrocyte cells. When treated, the tissue began
| forming new, functional cartilage.
|
| Once again, not in humans, in mice. We don't know if the same
| result happens in humans. At all. We need to proceed to clinical
| trials to determine if a result is indeed positive.
| samus wrote:
| No, it's in humans. It's literally the first sentence in your
| quote.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've inmiced the title above. Thanks!
| GuestFAUniverse wrote:
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01637...
|
| Reduce arthritis, get cancer?
| observationist wrote:
| With all the mouse research, a lab should compile the top 300
| interventions, lifestyles, regimens, etc, and apply it to a
| generation of mice. Give them all the best of the best gene
| edits, diets, environments, drug regimens, therapies, exercise,
| enrichment, and everything else. Get one or two broods of pups
| each year and breed them for healthspan and well-being, and each
| year, incorporate the latest and greatest research. Any time they
| need treatment, or surgery, select from the latest best research
| for that specific illness or injury.
|
| We have decades of superb mouse health optimization research, it
| should be applied.
| justinator wrote:
| paging Bryan Johnson
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