My research is driven by a desire to understand how major hormonal and regulatory pathways determine the specification, differentiation, and morphogenesis of mesenchymal tissues such as bone, cartilage, muscle, and fat. Mis-regulation of these pathways leads to significant medical diseases, including the inappropriate formation of mineralized tissues in atherosclerosis, heterotopic ossification, and cancer.
My research focuses on understanding how these regulatory signals control normal and pathologic tissue formation as a way to identifying new therapeutic avenues for treating human diseases. Our laboratory takes a comprehensive approach to understanding hormone signaling in human diseases using synthetic biology approaches, mouse models, and human stem cell models.
By combining multiple approaches with state-of-the art methods, our laboratory is working to develop a broader understanding of the biology underlying skeletal development, devise novel therapeutic approaches for treating human skeletal disorders and bone injuries, and examine how hormone signals affect important tissues such as fat, muscle, bone, cartilage, and blood vessels.
I am a member of the Endocrine Society and American Society for Bone and Mineral Research. In addition, I work actively with patient support groups through the Fibrous Dysplasia Foundation and International Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva Association, and the International Clinical Council on FOP. I also serve as director of UCSF's fellowship program in diabetes, endocrinology and metabolism. In the past I have received the March of Dimes Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Research Award and the Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Development Award, as well as research grant funding from the National Institutes of Health.