About Us

Members of The Mount Sinai Bone Program have made seminal discoveries on the mechanisms of musculoskeletal homeostasis in health and disease. These have included the first description of calcium sensing in the osteoclast, the cell that resorbs bone, as a primary physiologic mechanism for its control by ambient calcium. They discovered that nitric oxide regulates bone remodeling, an observation that has led to the testing of nitric oxide donors for use in human osteoporosis. More recently, his group has established the existence of a novel pituitary-bone axis, which has revolutionized the way how endocrine physiology is viewed. In this new arm of skeletal regulation, the pituitary hormones TSH, ACTH, FSH and oxytocin, previously thought solely to stimulate target endocrine organs, bypass these organs to directly affect the skeleton. These studies thus implicate pituitary hormones in the pathophysiology of osteoporosis, shifting the paradigm from our traditional, one disease-one hormone hypothesis to a multifaceted pathophysiology with significant future therapeutic implications. In addition, the group focuses on the effects of genetic diseases, including Gaucher Disease and congenital adrenal hyperplasia on the skeleton, the role of the nervous system and muscle in skeletal regulation using spinal cord injury models, mechanisms that regulate cartilage homoeostasis, the crossover of anti-cancer and anti-osteoporosis drugs, and the use of stem cells to promote skeletal regeneration.