A research team from the University of Oxford has identified talarozole, a retinoic acid metabolism-blocking agent, as a potential disease-modifying drug for patients with hand osteoarthritis. The team published their findings in a report by Zhu et al in Science Translational Medicine. In addition, using UK Biobank data, researchers confirmed that ALDH1A2 risk variants were associated with hand osteoarthritis. In a companion press release from the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology at the University of Oxford, Neha Issar-Brown, PhD, Director of Research and Health Intelligence at the charity Versus Arthritis, commented, “This research is still at an early stage, but with these encouraging findings we are a big step closer in being able to develop a new class of disease-modifying drugs to treat osteoarthritis, prevent chronic pain, and enable people to live well with the condition.”