uKNEEque envisions a synergy between clinical observations in patients, molecular pathogenesis of OA and microengineering with the aim of developing a novel human joint in vitro model to advance our knowledge on the molecular evolution of the disease, on the cross talks between relevant joint compartments (articular cartilage and subchondral bone) and on a putative therapeutic strategy to revert OA conditions. We hypothesize that an altered cross talk between joint compartments is the key regulator of OA pathological remodelling of the joint and that – as per recent studies on nasal chondrocytes (NCs) - this dysfunction can be reverted by soluble factors secreted by non-articular cartilage cells. To investigate this we aim at i) developing a 3D in vitro microplatform hosting a representative model of human joint including a cartilage construct adjacent to a bone construct; ii) driving this model to express OA traits by taking advantage of clinical observations in OA patients (inflammatory molecules and OA markers); iii) exploiting this model to investigate molecular signalling pathways at the basis of the disease; iv) evaluating the potential of non-articular cartilage cells to attenuate inflammatory conditions.