NIH Awards UAMS $1.54 Million to Tackle Brittle Bone Disease

By David Robinson

LITTLE ROCK — A UAMS research team is using a $1.54 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support its goal of finding better treatments for osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), also known as brittle bone disease.

The four-year award from the NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute will allow Roy Morello, Ph.D., and his interdisciplinary team to test whether lung abnormalities in OI patients can be treated separately from OI’s bone-related defects.

An estimated 25,000 to 50,000 people in the United States live with OI, a rare genetic disorder of connective tissues that has no cure. It is mainly caused by mutations in the genes responsible for producing Type I collagen, a protein that normally holds bones together and makes them strong. With inadequate collagen, bones become brittle and prone to fractures.

NIH Awards UAMS $1.54 Million to Tackle Brittle Bone Disease

Roy Morello, Ph.D., in his lab at UAMS.