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Clinton Rubin, Ph.D.
Professor and Director, Center for Biotechnology;
Chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Funding through the National Institutes of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal
and Skin Diseases.
Research in our laboratory focuses on the molecular, cellular and tissue
level mechanisms involved in the control of bone growth, healing, and
homeostasis, and how these mechanisms can be utilized in the diagnosis,
prevention and treatment of skeletal disease and injury. The interdisciplinary
nature of our work, spanning from determination of cell membrane dynamics
using atomic force microscopy to the computational modeling of bone strain
distributions in functionally loaded bone, require that students have
a strong grasp of either the physical or engineering sciences. By bringing
a background of force, strain, stress, material properties, signal processing
or computational models, the student becomes a valuable asset to our research
enterprise.
 Figure
1. 3-D mCT reconstructions of 1cm3 region of trabeculae
from medial femoral condyle of a control animal (left) and one
subject to low level mechanical stimulation for one year. These
images indicate increases in trabecular density and connectivity,
and thus both the quantity and quality of bone are improved. |
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The engineering and/or physical sciences student will be introduced to
complex biological problems in areas of wound healing, tissue remodeling
and cell plasticity, and will require that they apply their educational
background and simultaneously learn about clinical applications in health
in medicine. The student will be involved in identifying the temporal
and spatial expression of known and novel genes in bone formation, and
aid in determining the quantity and quality of the bone response. Biology
methodologies include differential mRNA display, cDNA microarrays, northern
analysis, in situ reverse transcriptase-PCR, semi-quantitative in vitro
RT-PCR, immunohistochemistry and histomorphometry. The student will see
that physical factors are strong anabolic stimuli (Figure 1), and when
introduced non-invasively to the skeleton can be used to accelerate fracture
healing, promote osseointegration and inhibit osteopenia.
Student Background: A student in mechanical engineering, materials science,
or computational sciences would use their background to determine the
relationship of bone structure to gene expression.
Contact Information
email: Clinton.Rubin@sunysb.edu
url: http://www.bme.sunysb.edu/bme/people/faculty/c_rubin.html
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