Congratulations to Samia Saleem on her first ASBMR presentation! (Links to an external site)

“With adequate optimization, GeoMx spatial transcriptomics is a robust tool for bone.” Samia presented her research on Spatial Transcriptomics at the ASBMR Conference in Vancouver. She talked about changes in bone in response to loading and the role of spatial transcriptomics in identifying important genes and pathways.

Welcome to our new undergraduates – Anurag Majumdar and Anna Li (Links to an external site)

Anurag is an undergraduate student at Washington University majoring in Biology: Neuroscience. He is currently working to identify cerebral regions of leptin sensitivity or abnormality in response to chronically high leptin levels. Anna is an undergraduate student studying Biomedical Engineering at Washington University. She will be assisting in bone scan analysis and projects investigating bioelectric […]

A bone-specific adipogenesis pathway in health and disease (Links to an external site)

Bone marrow adipocytes accumulate with age and in diverse disease states. However, their origins and adaptations in these conditions remain unclear, impairing our understanding of their context-specific endocrine functions and relationship with surrounding tissues. In this study, by analyzing bone and adipose tissues in the lipodystrophic ‘fat-free’ mouse, we define a novel, secondary adipogenesis pathway […]

Neuroskeletal Effects of Chronic Bioelectric Nerve Stimulation in Health and Diabetes (Links to an external site)

Background/Aims: Bioelectric nerve stimulation (eStim) is an emerging clinical paradigm that can promote nerve regeneration after trauma, including within the context of diabetes. However, its ability to prevent the onset of diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) has not yet been evaluated. Beyond the nerve itself, DPN has emerged as a potential contributor to sarcopenia and bone disease; […]

Neural regulation of bone marrow adipose tissue (Links to an external site)

Bone marrow adipose tissue (BMAT) is an important cellular component of the skeleton. Understanding how it is regulated by the nervous system is crucial to the study of bone and bone marrow related diseases. BMAT is innervated by sympathetic and sensory axons in bone and fluctuations in local nerve density and function may contribute to […]

A neuroskeletal atlas: spatial mapping and contextualization of axon subtypes innervating the long bones of C3H and B6 mice (Links to an external site)

Nerves in bone play well‐established roles in pain and vasoregulation and have been associated with progression of skeletal disorders including osteoporosis, fracture, arthritis and tumor metastasis. However, isolation of the region‐specific mechanisms underlying these relationships is limited by our lack of quantitative methods for neuroskeletal analysis and precise maps of skeletal innervation. To overcome these […]

Microneedles for ultrasensitive biomarker detection (Links to an external site)

The detection and quantification of protein biomarkers in interstitial fluid is hampered by challenges in its sampling and analysis. Here we report the use of a microneedle patch for fast in vivo sampling and on-needle quantification of target protein biomarkers in interstitial fluid. We used plasmonic fluor—an ultrabright fluorescent label—to improve the limit of detection […]

Immunostaining of Skeletal Tissues (Links to an external site)

Immunostaining is the process of identifying proteins in tissue sections by incubating the sample with antibodies specific to the protein of interest, then visualizing the bound antibody using a chromogen (immunohistochemistry or IHC) or fluorescence (immunofluorescence or IF). Unlike in situ hybridization, which identifies gene transcripts in cells, immunostaining identifies the products themselves and provides […]

Postdoc Dr. Mohamed Hassan awarded RLM fellowship (Links to an external site)

Dr. Hassan was recently selected as the 2020 recipient of the Rita Levi-Montalcini Postdoctoral Fellowship in Regenerative Medicine by the Washington University Center of Regenerative Medicine. Dr. Hassan is a dentist-scientist with training in Orthodontics and will join the lab in the Summer of 2021 to begin his work. Congratulations, Mohamed!

Madelyn Lorenz unveils the Neuroskeletal Atlas at ASBMR (Links to an external site)

After 4 years of hard work, Madelyn Lorenz was selected to present her new Neuroskeletal Atlas of the Mouse Limb as a featured oral presentation at the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) annual meeting. The Atlas is currently in preparation for publication and we anticipate having it available for preliminary use through […]

Xiao Zhang wins two research awards for work on marrow fat (Links to an external site)

Xiao Zhang won two of the prestigious awards for research at the recent BMA2020 meeting. After an independent committee review, his oral presentation “Fat in a fatless mouse: a novel origin of maladapted bone marrow adipocytes with age and disease” won 1st place in the best abstract category. In addition, his 2nd abstract “Neural contributions […]

Marrow adipose tissue has distinct roles in glucose homeostasis (Links to an external site)

Great to see this manuscript come together in the Cawthorn lab after many years of hard work, including his brand new BMAT imaging and analysis techniques and lots of lingering data generated by Drs. Cawthorn and Scheller when they worked together as postdocs in the MacDougald lab (Dr. Scheller made some of the blots in […]

Welcome to Dr. Alexander Ahmadi and Xiao Zhang

A warm welcome to two new trainees.  Dr. Alexander Ahmadi joins us from the Saint Louis University (SLU) periodontics residency program.  Dr. Ahmadi will be working with us on the oral biosensor project.  Xiao Zhang is currently visiting as a rotation student from the BME program at Washington University. Xiao will investigate the properties and […]

Congratulations and farewell to Dr. Craft

Dr. Craft has worked with us since the founding of the lab in 2016 and her contributions have helped to shape the lab into what it is today. We are thankful for her science and her leadership during the past few years. We wish her all the best as she transitions into her new career!