Each month, the ECTS Webinar Series on Bone, Muscle & Beyond features an EACCME®-accredited educational lecture by leaders in the field of bone research. A variety of topics in basic, translational and clinical research are presented at these webinars, with the intention to attract a broad audience.
A webinar entitled “Angiogenic approaches for bone tissue engineering/Fracture healing” was held on October 28, 2021 moderated by Maria-Bernadette Madel, a member of the ECTS E-Learning group. It featured Prof. Dr. Ralf Adams, who is the director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine and head of the Department of Tissue Morphogenesis in Münster, Germany.
Dr. Adams’ research focuses on vascular biology, the regulation of blood vessel growth, the organ-specific specialization of vascular cells, and the crosstalk between the vasculature and other cell types in the surrounding tissue based on the use of complex methods, such as advanced mouse genetics and confocal/two-photon microscopy together with a range of cell biology approaches. Vascularization is one essential component of bone formation, and in this webinar he presented data on the spatial patterns of blood vessel organization in bone and the different types of blood vessels as determined in murine long bones. His data showed the involvement of the Notch signaling pathway in the regulation of angiogenesis as well as osteogenesis and determined critical functional roles of specialized vessel subpopulations in skeletal development and bone homeostasis. His work shows the heterogeneity of endothelial cells in the bone marrow niche, and the importance of impaired angiogenesis with age-related bone loss. Finally, he discussed further research perspectives in this topic, and answered the questions from the audience related to the subpopulations of endothelial cells and their regulatory mechanisms.
We invite you to listen to the recordings of this and other past webinars in the member area of the ECTS website. We are looking forward to welcoming you to the next webinar, to be presented by Elazar Zelzer on the development and repair of bone-to-tendon attachment on December 16, 2021.