***CORTEX: Catching Osteoporosis on Routine computed Tomography as an added EXtra (application pdf with hyperlinks here). This idea was selected from over 600 applications to receive 2014 NHS Innovation funding . It means that we can diagnose and treat osteoporosis in the routine NHS imaging service while still conducting our basic research programme. Click here for an interesting article in the magazine Science explaining translational research***

Research in the bone group focuses on osteoporotic fragility fractures and osteoarthritis by examining bone structure, shape and biology in health and disease. With scientists from the University Engineering for Clinical Practice initiative, we pioneered a way of assessing the 3D structure and shape of cortical bone structure in life called Cortical Bone Mapping (CBM). We have used CBM to identify patches of focal osteoporosis in the femurs of women with hip fracture, and discovered that 1-34 parathyroid hormone therapy in severely osteoporotic women makes the femoral cortex thicker in key areas at risk of fracture. We recently discovered that cortical thickness and mass increased at critical locations in osteoporotic women treated with anti-RANK ligand antibody injections. Within the Department of Medicine, we represent the Division of Rheumatology and within Cambridge NIHR Biomedical Research Centre we represent the ‘Metabolism, Endocrinology and Bone‘  theme.

Our HTA licenced laboratory offers a full in-house histomorphometry service for the investigation of bone diseases, under the direction of Dr Linda Skingle. We specialise in hard tissue histomorphometry, embedding samples in LR white resin, applying various stains and then using Surveyor & Bioquant software for quantification purposes. Our long standing collaboration with local experts Objective Imaging has recently lead to our installation of an Oasis glide scanning stage to our Nikon Eclipse E800 microscope.

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Poole KE, Treece GM, Mayhew PM, Vaculik J, Dungl P, Horak M, Stepan JJ, Gee AH. Cortical Thickness Mapping to Identify Focal Osteoporosis in Patients with Hip Fracture, PLoS ONE 2012; 7(6): e38466

Poole KES, Treece GM, Ridgway GR, Mayhew PM, Borggrefe J, Gee AH. Targeted Regeneration of Bone in the Osteoporotic Human Femur. PLoS ONE 2011; 6:e1619

Poole KE, Mayhew PM, Rose CM, Brown JK, Bearcroft PJ, Loveridge N, Reeve J. Changing structure of the femoral neck across the adult female lifespan. J Bone Miner Res 2010; 25:482-491.

Johannesdottir F, Poole KE, Reeve J, Siggeirsdottir K, Aspelund T, Mogensen B, Jonsson BY, Sigurdsson S, Harris TB, Gudnason VG, Sigurdsson G. Distribution of cortical bone in the femoral neck and hip fracture: A prospective case-control analysis of 143 incident hip fractures; the AGES-REYKJAVIK Study. Bone 2011; 48:1268-1276.

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