Biomedical research in the Pacifici Laboratory spans three decades and has explored mechanisms of skeletal development and growth in fetal and postnatal life.
Dr. Pacifici's biomedical research spans three decades and has explored mechanisms of skeletal development and growth in fetal and postnatal life. Specifically, his focus has been on identifying the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate the differentiation of progenitor cells and permit assembly of distinct skeletal structures, and on aberrations of these mechanisms in pediatric skeletal disorders.
This week’s stories have elements that sound like fiction, but all are real, new scientific and medical findings: A condition that turns the body’s soft tissues into bone has new hope for a future treatment. Genetic superheroes walk among us, and they may not even know it. And pediatricians may have a tool to double their success in helping their patients’ parents quit smoking.
As rare pediatric diseases go, Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP) is about as rare and debilitating as they come, affecting roughly one in two million people around the world.
