Science AMA Series: We are Eddie Schwarz and Mike Zuscik, arthritis researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center. We are here, during National Arthritis Awareness Month, to answer your questions about how arthritis research advances patient care. AMA!

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Hi, Reddit! I’m Eddie Schwarz, Ph.D., Burton professor of Orthopaedics and director of the Center for Musculoskeletal Research at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, New York. As director of the CMSR, I oversee research on many different types of arthritis – rheumatoid, psoriatic, osteo-, and juvenile (Yes, you can get arthritis as a child!). My own research focuses on how the lymphatic system acts during rheumatoid arthritis flare. We found that arthritis flares when the lymphatic vessels that drain a joint breakdown due to chronic inflammation and effective treatments can reverse this. We recently started a clinical trial using a new imaging technique to assess lymphatic vessel contractions in the hands and arms of rheumatoid arthritis patients and healthy controls to identify biomarkers that can help us diagnose arthritic flare and develop new drugs.

Hi, Reddit! I’m Mike Zuscik, Ph.D., associate professor of Orthopaedics at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester. I’m interested in understanding why osteoarthritis is more aggressive in people who are obese and/or have type 2 diabetes. Spoiler alert: it is NOT simply because those people weigh more and that puts greater mechanical stress on their joints. My team has uncovered some interesting reasons that obesity/type 2 diabetes makes osteoarthritis worse, and some of those reasons relate to the microbes that live in our colon! Agents that affect these microbes could be new drugs to treat this disease.

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">Science AMA Series: We are Eddie Schwarz and Mike Zuscik, arthritis researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center. We are here, during National Arthritis Awareness Month, to answer your questions about how arthritis research advances patient care. AMA!