Regulation of Osteoclasts in Bone Pathologies

Funded Activity Summary

Destructive bone loss is a serious complication of many common inflammatory diseases. Three important examples are are, periodontal disease, rheumatoid arthritis and peri-implant osteolysis. The mechanism of osteoclast formation in these diseases is distinctly different from physiologic osteoclast formation. Despite the prevalence of these diseases until recently little is known about how bone erosion occurs However, recent advances in the understanding of these diseases has allow us to better investigate the mechanisms of the bone loss. Drugs to stop the loss of bone have only recently been available to patients and many new treatments are being developed. While most of these drugs are proving useful to treat osteoporosis, their suitability for the treatment of bone loss in diseases such as periodontal disease, rheumatoid arthritis and peri-implant osteolysis is largely unknown. As the way bone is lost in these inflammatory diseases quite different from osteoporosis different treatments are needed. This project aims to better understand bone loss in these diseases and identify new treatments to prevent the debilitating bone loss associated with inflammation in disease.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2007

End Date: 01-01-2009

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $439,903.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Orthopaedics

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Bone | Bone destruction | Drug efficacy | Drug targeting | Osteoclasts | Pathogenic mechanisms | Periodontal disease | Rheumatoid arthritis

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