Hui Shen
Tulane University of Louisiana, LA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Osteoporosis is the most common age-related bone disease. It thins the bones, measured as low bone mineral density, and raises the risk of fractures from minor falls.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Genetics
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
osteoporosis
gut microbiome
gut microbiota
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Identify gut bacterial species and pathways associated with bone mineral density, trabecular bone score and CT-based bone strength in more than 5,000 participants from the Louisiana Osteoporosis Study, testing for effects of sex and ethnicity.
- Perform a metagenome-wide association study comparing 150 adults aged 55 or older with osteoporotic fractures to 150 healthy controls, to find microbes and pathways specifically linked to fracture.
- Cross-reference the bone density and fracture results to separate microbial signatures shared by both outcomes from those unique to one of them.
- Test whether selected bacterial species causally affect bone density and fracture risk, using computational analyses and functional studies in aged mouse models.
More about the research
Mouse studies suggest that gut bacteria help control bone mass. Germ-free mice have denser bones and fewer osteoclasts, the cells that break bone down. Their bone mass returns to normal once they receive ordinary gut bacteria. Human studies have linked gut microbial diversity to osteoporosis, but they have been small. It is still unknown how gut microbes work together with a person's own genes to shape bone.
Why it matters
Older adults at risk of osteoporosis and fractures could benefit from this work. Microbial markers in stool could help predict who is likely to lose bone or break a bone. Bacteria tied to bone health could also point to new probiotic, prebiotic or synbiotic treatments that may lower osteoporosis risk.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Sabrina Noel
University of Massachusetts-Lowell, MA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test whether tailored nutrition education with complementary food provision reduces food insecurity and improves diet, blood glucose and HIV outcomes, in a randomized pilot trial of 100 people with HIV and prediabetes.
Ronald Kwon
University of Washington, WA·Genetics
Identify genes near 56 bone mineral density-linked genomic regions that cause adult skeletal defects when disrupted, using a reverse genetic screen and a new phenotyping strategy in zebrafish.
Santiago Cuesta
Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ·Neuroscience·Early-career
Identify how psychostimulant exposure changes gut microbial composition and the gut's chemical environment, using metagenomics to profile microbial DNA and metabolomics to measure small molecules.
The school
Tulane University of Louisiana: 17 labs on PI Pages, $276M a year on research, 187 research doctorates a year.
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