Pathological bone formation or remodeling affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Large bone defects occur frequently due to trauma, genetic disorders and tumors and require costly and invasive bone grafting procedures.

Several musculoskeletal diseases are associated with insufficient or excessive bone formation, and bone is the most frequent site for metastasis for several cancers, including breast and prostate cancers.

Despite the prevalence and impact of these conditions, effective treatments remain limited, largely because we still lack reliable in vitro models that can mimic the complexity of bone formation, remodeling, and disease progression.

Tissue engineering strategies based on of stem/stromal cells represent a promising avenue of treatment to regenerate bone in patients. Furthermore, they can lay the foundation for developing in vitro models that closely mimic physiological or pathological bone formation and remodeling.

The webinar will focus on our studies of the process of stromal cell-mediated endochondral ossification, which may be exploited to tissue engineer bone for advanced regenerative medicine or disease modeling applications.