Breakthrough offers new medical hope

A Sino-US joint research team has discovered a new mechanism of bone growth after four years' research, paving the way for curing bone-related diseases such as osteoporosis.

Team members from the Johns Hopkins University in the United States and the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University in Hunan province, China, found that a platelet-derived growth factor produced by osteoclast precursor cells plays an important role in the growth of certain blood vessels and bone, the hospital said Thursday.

Liao Eryuan, a team member and a professor at the hospital, said the new results show growth of blood vessels is a basis for metabolism of bones, and diseases in blood vessels can cause malfunctions in bone cells. This new discovery may lead to new drugs for bone diseases, he said.

Previously, medical theories held that bone metabolism is a result of regulated activity of bone-forming cells and bone-resorbing cells, the hospital said.