For Immediate Release October 10, 2005

For More Information Contact: Diane Brown, 317-274-7711 habrown@iupui.edu

IUPUI Professor Collaborating on Rensselaer Research to Improve Prediction of Bone Fracture Risk, Project Gets $1.2 Million Grant

INDIANAPOLIS - Age-related bone fractures are a cause of widespread health problems, such as osteoporosis, in the aging population. A team of researchers, including an IUPUI professor, has been awarded a five-year, $1.2 million grant to study how better to determine a person's risk for such fractures.

The National Institutes of Health awarded a study led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy, N.Y., the grant to work on improving the prediction of bone fracture risk by developing a new way to measure bone quality.

Team members are Deepak Vashishth, principal investigator and assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Rensselaer; Gary Gibson, biochemist at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit; and David Burr, chair and professor of the anatomy and cell biology department at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

The current standard medical test for risk of age-related, non-traumatic fractures is through measurement of an individual's bone mass index. Recent studies show that bone mass index, or bone quantity, is not a reliable means of predicting fracture risk.

"Bone mass predicts less than 50% of the risk of fracture," says Burr, who is also professor of orthopedic surgery and professor of biomedical engineering on the IUPUI campus. "The remainder of bone fracture risk is determined by measures of bone quality, such as the accumulation of microscopic damage in the bone, and the amount of mineral and collagen in the tissue. Our work seeks to quantify these aspects of the bone to determine their effect on bone strength."

Research in Vashishth's lab at Rensselaer focuses on identifying, establishing, and reversing the effects of age- and diabetes-related bone fragility. Studies involve the modification of proteins in bone and their influence on bone fracture.

Vashishth says fractures could be better predicted and prevented if researchers understood the aging body's modification of a specific protein, type 1 collagen, found in bone. "Our research group proposes that an individual's bone health is determined in part by the quality of tissue within the bone, and we are working on developing a biochemical assay to better predict bone fracture risk," he said. ###