Curie Brief
Turn on cookies to sign in
Signing in saves your progress to your Curie account. We can only do that with cookies on — turn them on to continue.
News
Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have identified a universal stem cell for tendons and ligaments that appears to go into overdrive in lumbar spinal stenosis — a condition affecting 103 million people worldwide. In mice, blocking calcium signaling in these cells halted abnormal ligament growth, pointing to a potential drug target. Common blood pressure medications called calcium channel blockers may one day be repurposed as a treatment.
Scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and Hospital for Special Surgery have identified a previously unknown stem cell population that acts as the universal source of all tendon and ligament cells in the body. Published in Cell, the study found these cells living in a specialized niche within tendons and ligaments — and confirmed their presence everywhere from the Achilles tendon to the kneecap ligament.
The real breakthrough? These stem cells appear to become overactive in lumbar spinal stenosis, a condition where thickened ligaments compress spinal nerves, causing pain, numbness, and difficulty walking. Patients with stenosis had more of these stem cells in their ligaments, and those cells produced excess tissue when transplanted into mice. Elevated calcium signaling was found to be driving the abnormal growth — and blocking it in a mouse model stopped the overgrowth entirely, raising the possibility that calcium channel blockers, already widely prescribed for high blood pressure, could be studied as a non-surgical treatment.
By the Numbers
Why it matters: For the millions living with spinal stenosis, surgery is often the only option once symptoms become severe. This discovery offers the first mechanistic target for the disease and could pave the way for drug-based interventions — potentially transforming how spine care is delivered.
