Bones of Invention

Other scientists are looking at the nature of bone cells themselves in the hope that a better understanding of their structure and properties will help to eradicate osteoporosis. "We are really at the beginning of this kind of study," says Barbara Boyan, a professor of biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory. In her lab, Boyan and her colleagues have found intriguing sex differences in the transplantability of male and female cells. It's not clear yet what these differences mean, but Boyan thinks they might someday yield a more sophisticated explanation of why women are more vulnerable to osteoporosis (beyond the rapid decline of estrogen that occurs at menopause). "This is the era of personalized medicine," she says, and recognizing the importance of basic differences between the sexes should be the first step in individualizing treatment. Someday, those differences and others still undetected could make the dowager's hump disappear forever.

© 2007