Campus News: Week of October 30, 2000

Researchers Study Effects of Aging on Bones

Osteoporosis threatens 28 million Americans, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation. Deepak Vashishth, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, may have found a way to predict where the disease will strike.

Vashishth and his graduate students, Serena Sit and Ping Chen Wu, are studying the effects of aging on bone's fracture properties. As people age, their bones become more brittle, which accounts for the increased number of bone fractures in the elderly. The problem lies with determining the factors that increase the stiffness of bone's collagen matrix, which consequently escalates an individual's risk to fracture.

"As we age, there is an increase in the number of ribose- and glucose-induced cross links in bone that are formed due to the reaction of sugar with the collagen in bone. This gives the bone a caramelized candy look and increases the chance of fracture," Vashishth explained. "But we cannot be sure whether this increased cross linking is causal to the age-related deterioration in bone's fracture properties."

Vashishth and his team therefore conduct aging experiments in vitro to simulate this process by incubating human bones obtained from the National Disease Research Interchange (NDRI) in a ribose solution at body temperature (37º Celsius). The bones are demineralized, leaving only collagen, which is mechanically tested to estimate stiffness. Vashishth has found a 92 percent correlation between the cross links and collagen stiffness, and anticipates this to be a good predictive tool for osteoporosis.

Vashishth and his team are collaborating with the Bone and Joint Center at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

The findings of this study will be published in 2001 in BONE, an official publication of the International Bone and Mineral Society.

10/30/00

Richard Linn '65 Receives RAA Fellows Award

Rensselaer's Office of Technology Commercialization presented Richard Linn '65 with the Rensselaer Alumni Association Fellows Award Oct. 19 in Washington, D.C. The award presentation was part of a reception for Rensselaer alumni during annual meeting of the American Intellectual Property Law Association.

Linn, a circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, earned a B.S. in electrical engineering from Rensselaer in 1965 and J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1969. Prior to becoming a circuit judge, Linn was a patent attorney and partner in the firm of Foley & Lardner.

Linn is a founding member and chair of the Board of Governors of the Virginia State Bar Section on Patent, Trademark and Copyright Law, and a member of the American Bar Association, the American Intellectual Property Law Association, and the District of Columbia Bar Association.

The RAA Fellows Award honors graduates who by their life's work have set an example for Rensselaer men and women to emulate. To date, 106 RAA Fellows Awards have been presented.

10/30/00

Town Meeting on the Rensselaer Plan

President Jackson will host a campus town meeting Thursday, Nov. 2, 6-9 p.m in the Armory. Free pizza will be served beginning at 6 p.m. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss progress on the Rensselaer Plan. The primary focus of the meeting, which is open to the entire campus community, will be on student concerns.

The town meeting will be aired live on Channel 2 of the Campus Television Network, which is broadcast to the residence halls. In addition, public viewing areas will be set up in the Mueller Center and the Union.

If you can't attend, you can submit questions using the form found at http://www.asms.rpi.edu/mmr/townmeeting/submit_question.html or phone (276-3045).

For live streaming video of the meeting go to http://www.asms.rpi.edu/mmr/townmeeting/.

10/30/00