SINPAIN Progress Meeting in Marseille

Before the year comes to an end, the SINPAIN partners gathered once more to discuss the progress in the project. This time, the meeting was hosted by OZ Biosciences in Marseille on 12-13 November 2024.

Particularly the first meeting day was intense with a deep-dive into medicinal chemistry: the team presented the results of their work with nanoemulsions, non-viral vectors with therapeutic siRNA, hydrogels, macrophages, chondrocytes and neurons. For the first time, we could see how SINPAIN siRNA-based treatments can specifically silence inflammatory signals in primary cells derived from patients, and the positive effects of the first-ever prototypes of SINPAIN combined therapeutics. With the composition of these first therapies defined, an important milestone will be reached when the preclinical experiments at Saarland University get the go to start at the beginning of next year. Furthermore, the SINPAIN team explained how single-cell proteomics and transcriptomics studies are helping in deciphering the individual contribution of each cell type to the onset and progression of osteoarthritis.

As usual, the partners also discussed regulatory issues particularly with regard to the information needed for the Innovation Task Force (ITF) meeting.

As for upcoming dissemination activities, there are plans to attend numerous conferences in 2025. Paolo Gargiulo from Reykjavik University is co-editor of a new Frontiers research topic on “Advancing Cartilage Regeneration and Repair: Biomaterials and Biomechanical Strategies” and Bruno Peault from UCLA pointed out another Frontier research topic of interest on “Translation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells in vivo: Evidence from preclinical and clinical testing”. Both have recently been opened for submissions.

A big thank you to the OZ Biosciences team for making us feel so welcome!