Janet Rubin, MD, the Sarah Graham Kenan Distinguished Professor of Medicine in the division of endocrinology and metabolism, has received a five-year R01 grant from the NIH’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.
The $2.4 million grant will support a study of the role of force regulated nuclear structure in expression of osteogenesis.
Mesenchymal stem cells, which supply progenitors for bone forming osteoblasts, experience physical force (“exercise”) transferred through the actin cytoskeleton and into the nucleus. The force changes nuclear structure, which Rubin believes has an effect on gene expression. With this funding, Rubin will study how different types of force, through their respective induced actin cytoskeletons, affect nuclear structure and the expression of osteogenic genes.