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Dr. Amanda Nelson’s $365,000, 2-year grant will facilitate much-needed research strategies designed to lead to more personalized and successful management of OA.


Like many chronic diseases, osteoarthritis is a heterogeneous condition consisting of multiple subgroups, or phenotypes, with different underlying mechanisms. The inherent difficulty in understanding this heterogeneity is one reason that none of the attempts to date have resulted in disease-modifying osteoarthritis drugs.

Therefore, future trials will need to take a precision medicine approach and target specific OA phenotypes to enable the development of personalized and effective therapeutics.

The research project being funded by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases will be led by Dr. Nelson at the UNC Thurston Arthritis Research Center, and will incorporate a range of researchers with expertise in areas including OA and biostatistics. The project will also build upon recent research utilizing “machine learning.”

For additional information regarding the UNC Thurston Arthritis Research Center’s use of increasingly sophisticated technologies, learn more about our Phenotyping and Precision Medicine Resource Core.