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C-COMP News

Jul 20, 2026, 4:15 PM

ORS Represents Musculoskeletal Research at Congressional Briefing

C-COMP Director and ORS Secretary Dr. Anne-Marie Malfait and Executive Director Brenda Osuch represented the Society at the congressional lunch briefing, Reducing Pain Across the Lifespan: Aging Well, Living Better, held on June 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. More…

Mar 6, 2026, 11:02 AM

COMPositions: Better Red Than Dead

Thanksgiving Day, November 1936. As was her custom, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States of America, had conjured up a sumptuous feast at her house in the New York suburb of Hyde Park. The traditional Thanksgiving turkey was surrounded by all sorts of delicious holiday treats. The table looked glorious. However, just that morning a serious problem had arisen. A phone call from Boston had informed Mrs. Roosevelt that her son, Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR) Jr, had been taken to hospital. The problem had apparently started with a sinus infection. But then things started to go rapidly downhill. More…

Jun 14, 2025, 8:19 AM

The Reign of Pain

Pain is always something to be overcome. There are many contexts for this. For the Amazonian Indians it may represent a passage to manhood. For a patient in hospital, it may be part of the pathway to recovery. Overcoming pain may even be recreational. Chili peppers are spicy but in excess may be really painful. The eating of such peppers can take on a competitive edge. Who can eat the hottest one? In the case of the Bullet Ant, we may wonder where exactly the pain comes from? The jaws of the ant, though fearsome to look at, are surely not sufficient to produce such an excruciating and lingering experience. Indeed, the jaws are not the point. It is the stinger at the other end of the ant that is the key. This contraption is capable of injecting the venom of the ant into its victim. But here again we might wonder exactly how large a volume of its venom a single ant might inject? Surely this is a tiny amount? How could so small a quantity be responsible for such a devastating result? More…

Apr 27, 2025, 4:14 PM

New Publication | Featured in Science Advances - Journal Club on May 12

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Obesity is a risk factor for osteoarthritis (OA), and leptin is among the adipokines implicated in obesity-induced OA. However, the specific role of leptin in OA severity and pain is not known. Using lipodystrophic (LD) mice, we show that fat-secreted factors are required for knee OA development, implicating a fat-cartilage cross-talk. More…

Feb 17, 2025, 6:27 PM

BORS-BJR fellows visit C-COMP

Five orthopaedic researchers selected by the British Orthopaedic Research Society (BORS) and Bone & Joint Research (BJR) visit C-COMP as part of the 2025 fellowship program. More…

Nov 18, 2024, 10:33 AM

New Publication | Featured in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research - November 15, 2024

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A major barrier that hampers our understanding of the precise anatomic distribution of pain sensing nerves in and around the joint is the limited view obtained from traditional two dimensional (D) histological approaches. Therefore, our objective was to develop a workflow that allows examination of the innervation of the intact mouse knee joint in 3D by employing clearing-enabled light sheet microscopy. More…

Nov 14, 2024, 2:24 PM

New Publication | Featured in Frontiers - July 14, 2024

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Knee joints are densely innervated by nociceptors. In human knees and rodent models, sprouting of nociceptors has been reported in late-stage osteoarthritis (OA). Here, we sought to describe progressive nociceptor remodeling in early and late-stage OA, using four distinct experimental mouse models. More…

Oct 1, 2024, 6:33 PM

COMPositions Guest Post - Tulsa Johnson

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Female Hysteria and Healthcare: How Does the History of Female Hysteria Affect Women’s Healthcare Today? When I was in high school, I read a short story by Charlotte Perkins Stetson called “The Yellow Wallpaper”. In reading this story I felt camaraderie with the main character’s experiences. More…

Mar 24, 2024, 1:42 PM

The Role of Women in the History of the Animal Rights Movement

"Once you get to the 16th century, there was Montaigne who wrote eloquently about the reasons why we should respect the intelligence and feelings of animals. Then in the 17th century there was Margaret Cavendish, the first women to write about these topics, followed by others in the 18th century. Suddenly, in the 19th century, there were a huge number of women involved in the animal rights movement; actually, I think it was mostly women! Why was this?" More…

Sep 5, 2023, 1:19 PM

C-COMP Journal Club - September 25, 2023

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Join us for our upcoming C-COMP Journal Club presentation featuring Dr. Alice Courties and Dr. Paul Peter Tak on September 25, 2023, at 10:00 am CST! More…

Jul 5, 2023, 3:52 PM

New Book Publication | Neurobiology Core Director - Richard J. Miller, PhD

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The Rise and Fall of Animal Experimentation critically examines this assumption and asks whether it is true that animal-based research achieves its aims and, if so, how often this occurs and if there are alternatives to performing animal-based science. -Oxford University Press 2023 More…

Mar 31, 2023, 3:04 PM

Robert Boyle and His Dogs

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“Why, we can hardly call it a complaint, Miss Ruthyn. I look upon it he has been poisoned-he has had, you understand me, an overdose of opium; you know he takes opium habitually; he takes it in laudanum, he takes it in water, and most dangerous of all, he takes it solid, in lozenges. More…

Jul 16, 2022, 11:54 AM

2022 Pilot Grants Closed

Thank you to the 14 groups that submitted pilot grant applications this year - submissions are now closed for 2022. More…

Jun 17, 2022, 10:36 AM

2022 RFA for Pilot Grants

$25K for 1 year, focused on mechanisms underlying pain in musculoskeletal and rheumatic disease. Apply now, deadline July 15 2022. More…

Apr 21, 2022, 9:00 AM

Inaugural Seminar

April 25, 2022: 3-4 p.m. - Kelsey H. Collins, PhD - “Using Patient-Relevant Outcomes and Tissue Engineering Strategies to Study Fat-Cartilage Crosstalk” More…

Mar 28, 2022, 8:18 AM

Launching C-COMP

How do we know if something is alive? Probably the thing that would first strike us would be the presence or absence of some kind of coordinated movement. More…

Mar 18, 2022, 9:00 AM

WashU MSK Biology & Regeneration Symposium

The Wash U Centers of Musculoskeletal Research and Regenerative Medicine are hosting the 2nd Musculoskeletal Biology and Regeneration Meeting at the WUSM campus in St. Louis on May 5-6, 2022. More…