Skeletal Interoception Regulation in Bone Homeostasis and Disorders

04 December 2022, Sunday
13:00-15:00 (London); 8:00-10:00 (New York); 21:00-23:00 (Beijing)

Zooming info:
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Meeting ID: 826 657 0519
Passcode: 718288
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Host: Prof. Zhidao Xia 
Swansea University, UK

Introduction (10 min): Prof. Xu Cao
Johns Hopkins University, USA

Lecture 1: (20 min, 15 + 5 Q&A)
Skeletal Interoception in Bone and Pain

Prof. Xu Cao
Johns Hopkins University, USA

Lecture 2: (20 min, 15 + 5 Q&A)
Regulation of cartilage regeneration by skeletal interoception

Prof. Jian Luo 
Tongji University School of Medicine, China

Lecture 3 (20 min, 15 + 5 Q&A)
The role of sensory nerve system in fracture repair

Prof. Ling Qin 
Orthopaediatrics and Traumatology, CUHK SZ-HK Innovation Technology Institute, China

Lecture 4: (20 min, 15 + 5 Q&A)
Ventromedial hypothalamus regulate stress-induced anxiety and bone loss

Prof. Fan Yang
Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Lecture 5: (20 min, 15 + 5 Q&A)
Metal ions mediated osteogenesis via CNS-Skeletal Pathway

Prof. Kelvin Yeung

Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, The University of Hong Kong, China

Panel Discussion and Wrap up (15 min)

Dr. Bo Hu
Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, Naval Medical University, China


Dr. Hao Chen
Yangzhou University, China


Dr. Xiao Lv
School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, USA
 

Dr. Hui Xie
Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, China

Organizing Committee (Alphabetically):
Prof. Xu Cao
Department of Orthopaedics, Johns Hopkins University, USA

Prof. Xiaodong Guo
Department of Orthopaedics, Wuhan Union Hospital, China

Prof. Bin Li
Institute of Orthopaedics, Soochow University, China

Prof. Zengwu Shao
Department of Orthopaedics, Wuhan Union Hospital, China

Prof. Qian Wang
University of South Carolina, USA

Dr. Zhidao Xia
Swansea University Medical School, Swansea, UK

Prof. Weihua Xu
Department of Orthopaedics, Wuhan Union Hospital, China

Dr. Cao Xu was initially trained in cartilage biology during his Ph. D study at University of South Carolina. He studied osteoclast biology in his postdoctoral training at the  Washington University. The research focus of his laboratory is to study the mechanism of skeletal tissue homeostasis and related skeletal disorders including rare genetic diseases, osteoarthritis, and spine degeneration. His lab has discovered TGF-β in coupling bone resorption and formation during bone remodeling, PDGF-BB secreted by preosteoclasts in angiogenesis and their roles in osteoarthritis and other skeletal diseases. Particularly, aberrant bone remodeling activates TGF-β1 in many different bone diseases such as osteoarthritis, low back pain, ankylosing spondylitis and heterotopic ossification. Recently, Dr. Cao’s group has found that skeletal interoception regulates skeleton homeostasis and pain. Specifically, sensory nerves in the bone perceive the concentration changes of osteoblast-derived prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) to activate PGE2 receptor EP4 as an ascending interoceptive signal to the hypothalamus. PGE2/EP4 signal downregulates sympathetic tone for osteoblastic bone formation to maintain bone homeostasis as the skeletal interoception circuitry. These findings implicate therapeutic potentials for skeletal pain.

Prof. Jian Luo is a Distinguished Young Scholar and Excellent Young Scholar of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Young Scholar of the Chang Jiang Scholars Program by the Ministry of Education of China. After Dr. Jian Luo received his Ph.D. from a joint program between Texas A&M University Health Science Center and Hunan Normal University in 2007, he went backed to East China Normal University as a lecturer and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2009, and full professor in 2014, and then he moved to Tongji University in 2021. Prof. Jian Luo's laboratory focuses on understanding the molecular pathology of aging-related skeleton diseases, bone and cartilage regeneration, as well as drug discovery and stem cell therapy on skeleton diseases. Prof. Jian Luo has published more than 60 peer-reviewed scientific articles and obtained 14 patents, 4 of which have been transferred to pharmaceutical companies. He is an Editorial Board Member of Bone and Bone Reports journal and vice president of the Shanghai Society for Cell Biology, deputy organizing committee of the Basics Group of the Orthopaedic Youth Committee of the Chinese Medical Association, secretary-general of the Orthopaedic Expert Committee of the Geriatric Society of the China Association of Gerontology and Geriatric, president of the Youth Committee of the Cancer Microenvironment Committee of the China Cancer Association.

Prof. Ling Qin has been working on basic and translation research in orthopedics with a focus on the diagnosis and pathophysiology of bone metabolic disorders and their treatment using innovative biometals as Class III medical implants over the past 30 years. Professor Qin is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Orthopaedic Translation and past president of the International Chinese Musculoskeletal Research Society (ICMRS). As principal investigator, Dr. Qin has received over 30 competitive research grants (including AoE, TRS, CRF, GRF, ITF, HMRF, NSFC-RGC from Hong Kong, and EU-NSFC, 12.5 and 13.5 Key R&D projects of the MOST from Mainland). Professor Qin published 9 books and over 460 SCI journal papers with a H-index of 66. He also holds over 30 invention or new utility patents from the PRC and the USA. Professor QIN received many prestigious honors and awards, including fellow of AIMBE, ICORS, ASBMR, and IUSBSE attributed to his contribution to musculoskeletal research and innovation of biomaterials for orthopaedic applications, and was listed in 2021 World’s Best Medicine Scientists in Research.com.

Prof. Kelvin Yeung He has been passionate about applied orthopaedic biomaterial research and translation for more than 20 years. His major research areas include orthopedic biomaterials, antibacterial coatings, 3D bio-printing and musculoskeletal tissue engineering. He trained as a materials scientist for his bachelor’s degree and then as an orthopedic scientist in HKU Medical Faculty for his master’s degree and his Ph.D. He is currently a tenured full professor in the Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, at the University of Hong Kong, Director of the Research Laboratory of Orthopaedic Centre & Deputy Director of Shenzhen Key Laboratory for Innovative Technology in Orthopaedic Trauma, The University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Hospital. His h-index is 73 (Google Scholar) with 18,577 citations and his i10-index is 238. He has been consecutively ranked as the World’s Top 1% of Scientists in the field of biomaterials by Clarivate Analytics’ Essential Science Indicators (ESI) from 2014 to 2022. In addition to publishing more than 280 peer-reviewed SCI journal papers, 290+ conference papers and filing 41 full patents in various countries, he co-founded OrthoSmart Limited with two senior colleagues to adapt their research findings for clinical use. He was the interim CEO and served as one of the directors in this startup company. Furthermore, he has been invited to act as a consultant for several medical device and biomaterial corporations.

Prof. Yang Fan a professor at Shenzhen institutes of advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Peking University. Then he obtained his PhD degree from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong in 2008. Dr Yang’s research interests mainly focused on how different neural circuits and neuron subtypes exert influences on bone metabolism in disease models. Recently he has identified a GABAergic neural circuit in the ventromedial hypothalamus mediating chronic stress-induced bone loss, which supports the crucial role of central neural circuits in maintaining the homeostasis of bone metabolism. Currently, he is using cutting-edge technology including optogenetics, chemogenetics and neural tracing to dissect the underlying mechanism of crosstalk between the brain and the bone. Dr Yang’s recent research work has been published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation; Molecular Psychiatry; Nature Communications et al. Dr Yang is now presiding over National Natural Science Foundation Funding: The study of bone metabolism through central neural circuits. He also joined the National Basic Research Program (973).

Dr. Hao Chen, an orthopedic surgeon, received his Ph.D at Soochow University. He started his research career in Dr. Cao’s lab at Johns Hopkins University, majoring in the  investigation of the interaction between nervous and skeletal systems. He is now a the full professor at Yangzhou University. His research work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and has been published in reputational journals including Nature Communications and so on.

Dr. Xiao Lv, He received his Bachelor’s and PhD degrees from Huazhong University of Science and Technology. He worked in Prof. Xu Cao’s lab as a trainee at Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine. Dr Lv’s research interests mainly focused on the role of different neural circuits and subtypes in the skeleton and orthopedic diseases. Currently, he is using advanced technologies including gene modification and neural tracing to discriminate specific nuclei in the brain for bone metabolism and skeletal pain. Dr Lv’s recent research work has been published in Cell Metabolism, Journal of Clinical Investigation, eLife, Advanced Science, Faseb J. et al. Dr. Lv received Natural Science Foundation Funding: The role of sympathetic nervous system in low back pain.

Dr. Bo Hu, He received his Bachelor’s degree from Nanchang University. And he obtained his PhD degree from Naval Medical University. He served as a joint PhD student of Naval Medical University and Johns Hopkins University. He studied in Professor Xu Cao’s lab at the musculoskeletal center of Johns Hopkins University from 2016-2018. Dr Hu’s research interests mainly focused on the nervous system communicates with the skeletal system under homeostasis and pathological conditions. Recently he demonstrated that prostaglandins E2 could act as bone interoceptive signals that maintain bone homeostasis via sympathetic nerve modulation on mesenchymal stromal cells, he also showed that sensory nerve secretion of neuropeptide CGRP modulates intervertebral disc homeostasis by tuning its extracellular matrix metabolism. Currently, he is studying a circuit between the intervertebral disc and dorsal root ganglion that regulates intervertebral disc maintenance and repair. Dr. Hu’s recent research work has been published in Nature Communications; Journal of Clinical Investigation; Advanced Science; et al. Dr Hu is now presiding over National Natural Science Foundation Funding and the Shanghai Chenguang Program concerning the mechanism of how intervertebral disc interoceptive signals affect its homeostasis. 

Prof. Hui Xie, professor of the Department of Orthopedics and Director of Movement System Injury and Repair Research Center at Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, has been working on basic ad translation research in orthopaedics with a focus on the pathophysiology of bone metabolic disorders and their treatment using innovative biologicals over the past 17 years. Professor Xie has revealed the quaternary regulation mode of bone metabolism, the novel inter-organ crosstalk between bone and others (brain, gut, vessel), the key messenger of calcification paradox of bone and blood vessels, the key switch molecules for determining the fate of BMSC osteogenesis and adipogenesis, and the classic endothelial cell marker positive (KEM+) BMSC, etc. He also proved the anti-osteoporosis and fracture healing stimulation effects of extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from urine-derived mesenchymal stem cells and intestinal probiotics, etc. He published 110 SCI papers, with approximately 6000 citations, with a H index of 39. He was supported by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars and Excellent Young Scholars, and the National Overseas Youth High-level Talents Program. He was awarded the National Youth Position Expert. He won the first prize in the Hunan Natural Science Award, the first prize in the COA Orthopedic Basic Youth Research Award, etc., and applied for 16 domestic and foreign invention patents (7 authorized).