News

The downloadable program for this year's Musculoskeletal Health Research Day is here.

We invite applications for predoctoral students to participate in the NIH-funded training grant focused on musculoskeletal health (MuSCLE) at UC Davis, which is jointly administered by the Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and Biomedical Engineering.

Senescence is a state of quiescence, when cells no longer proliferate, and senescence becomes more evident as we age. While this natural process can be beneficial in slowing the appearance of cancer, senescent cells have a detrimental effect on tissue maintenance due to the secretion of endogenous factors that result in a local inflammatory environment. The senescence associated secretory phenotype (SASP) is a key indicator of senescent cells, and recent work from Kent Leach's lab describes the influence of substrate stiffness on SASP secretion.

In collaboration with investigators at UCSF, new work from the Ambrosi lab (MuSCLE T32 trainer) describes a hormone produced in lactating mice that promotes the build up of bones, keeping them strong during milk production. Injecting this hormone into injured mice helped their bones heal faster, and the team hopes that their finding could ultimately help treat bone-weakening conditions like osteoporosis in humans. Read the full article in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07634-3