Research in the Price Laboratory focuses on the i) elucidation of the mechanosensory etiology of musculoskeletal disease and degeneration, and ii) the use of this knowledge to identify rationale disease modifying strategies for diagnosing, preventing, treating, and regenerating injured/diseased tissues. We use cross-disciplinary approaches, combining biomechanics, advanced bioimaging, cell and molecular biology, and animal models, to investigate mechanobiology, mechanotransduction, and tissue development/adaptation/repair in both healthy and diseased/injured musculoskeletal tissues.
Currently, our work centers on two tissues, articular cartilage and bone. In these tissues we are focused on i) identifying and directly quantifying the biomechanical signals generated within musculoskeletal tissues and sensed by their cells using image-based and modeling techniques, ii) identifying how these forces are sensed tissue mechanosensors (i.e. chondrocytes and osteocytes, respectively) and transduced both within and amongst cells in order to effect an adaptive response, and iii) use this knowledge to interrogate musculoskeletal disease etiology and to identify better, and translatable mechanisms of diagnosis and treatment via both animal modeling and molecular biology approaches. Specifically, we are interested 1) in the role that acute joint injury has on the mechanobiology and mechanotransduction the development of posttraumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA) within articular, 2) the testing of novel, rationally designed and targeted chondroprotective therapies for the prevention of PTOA, and 3) the effect of aging on the mechanosensory and mechanotransduction capabilities of osteocytes within bone, and the role this plays in age-related osteoporosis and fracture risk.