Glen Niebur

Areas of Interest

One in three women and one in six men will suffer an osteoporotic fracture in their lifetime.

Research in the Tissue Mechanics Laboratory is currently focused on bone mechanobiology, with an emphasis on how mechanical loading affects bone marrow and osteocyte gene and protein expression. We use bioreactor culture systems to apply controlled loading to living bone to determine how the local mechanics affect the cellular signaling to control bone formation or resorption.

We are using similar technology to help understand the interaction between bone mechanobiology and metastatic cancer. Cancer preferentially metastasizes to bone, where it is largely incurable. We are working to understand how the interaction with the normal mechanobiology of bone affects the tumor biology.