News and Media Coverage
- 01.26.2024 | Science Blog - Cincinnati Children’s
A team of developmental biology experts at Cincinnati Children’s has published a comprehensive review article in Science Advances about somite segmentation that challenges previous thinking about this early stage of skeletal and muscle development.
- 02.15.2023 | NBC 5 - WPTV
University of Cincinnati College of Medicine professor Ertuğrul Özbudak and a research team of students recently investigated a key component of how the spinal column forms early on in life. Using animals and computer-generated models, they were able to mimic the process in which a mutation affects the vertebrae from being evenly divided and causes scoliosis. Then they were able to use drugs already available to correct that mutation.
"Maybe there will be a really secure way of doing this, even maybe perhaps in pregnancy," Özbudak said.
- 01.11.2023 | UC News
How cells shape complex tissues and organs during embryo development, which makes us what we are, has many mysteries.
New research from the University of Cincinnati has examined one such process which leads to the formation of vertebral column or spinal column. If this process is disrupted, it results in a birth defect called congenital scoliosis, or curvature of the spine. The UC research not only advanced understanding of how complex biological tissues form, but it could also lead to possible treatments for scoliosis in the future.
- 12.14.2022 | Science Blog - Cincinnati Children’s
One of the most dramatic phases of fetal development occurs as previously unstructured collections of rapidly dividing precursor cells begin forming the embryo’s spine.
When this process goes well, it sets a solid foundation for the many other development steps that follow. When it does not, the growth defects that follow can be severe.
Now, a research team from Cincinnati Children’s and the University of Cincinnati has discovered how a set of segmentation clock genes instruct the tempo of spine formation. Mutations of clock genes lead to birth defects in humans called congenital scoliosis. The team’s findings open doors wider to a new wave of basic science research that may someday allow interventions when clock genes throughout our bodies fall out-of-sync.
This news was also covered by Phys.org.
- 12.23.2020 | Science Blog - Cincinnati Children’s
For some time, scientists have known that specific genes pair up on the same chromosome to co-express in cells and tissues. But they’ve never known why this happens.
Researchers at Cincinnati Children’s did an experiment separating these pairs and learned that they play a significant role in the proper development of the spinal column. The study, led by Ertuğrul Özbudak, PhD, associate professor of Developmental Biology at Cincinnati Children’s, was published Dec. 23, 2020, in Nature.