Description:

Rachel E. Miller, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Internal Medicine
Division of Rheumatology
Rush University Medical Center

Knee osteoarthritis is a painful chronic disease affecting 27 million people in the United States. Biomechanical factors play an important role in both joint pain and damage, but exactly how mechanical forces act on joint tissues to drive the disease is unknown. Our long-term goal is to elucidate how mechanical loading is sensed by joint tissues and how responses to loading contribute to osteoarthritis. We use novel combinations of calcium imaging tools with systems to apply mechanical forces at the in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo levels. A current focus in the lab is studying how mechanosensitive ion channels may contribute to osteoarthritis.