BME Seminar Series: Clint Rubin, Distinguished Lecturer

SUNY Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY

SUNY Distinguished Professor and Chair
Department of Biomedical Engineering

Osteoporosis and obesity, two of the most dreaded diseases in the U.S., affect over 30% of the American population and result in close to $200B in annual health service costs. Control of either of these diseases has proven difficult, with perhaps their most common etiologic factor being a sedentary lifestyle and the most common intervention being exercise, indicating a pivotal role of mechanical signals in defining bone and fat mass. Work from the benchtop through the barnyard to the bedside has indicated that extremely small magnitude mechanical signals stimulate osteoblastogenesis (transformation of mesenchymal stem cells into bone cells) and bone formation in the weight bearing skeleton, while simultaneously suppressing adipogenesis (MSC differentiation into fat cells) and adiposity... and may represent a non-drug therapy for too much fat or not enough bone.

(Coffee will be served)