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Alessandra Carriero, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in ����Ӱҵ’s Grove School of Engineering, is the recipient of more than $1.1 million from the (HFSP) -- one of 28 grants awarded for top class research after a rigorous year-long global selection process. The funding will support her study on the role of bone cellular and sub-cellular porosity in calcium homeostasis.

Carriero heads the City College arm of a three-year international grant awarded from the HFSP, which promotes new intercontinental collaborations in risky, cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research focused on elucidating the complex mechanisms of living organisms. The research program is highly competitive and only the top 4% of all HFSP grant applications were funded this year. 

“The grant will allow us to investigate the role of the bone cellular and sub-cellular porosity network on its mineral transport. This knowledge may revolutionize the way we conceive bone physiology and eventually transform treatment strategies promoting bone health.” 

Carriero’s collaborators include at Canada’s MacMaster University and at CNRS, Université Grenoble Alpes in France.  

Grandfield is using a plasma focused-ion beam microscope to identify the cell network and the smaller pore network. These images will then be used by Carriero’s team at ����Ӱҵ to develop a computational model of fluid flow within bone to determine whether the osteocyte network alone can account for the massive change in bone minerals, or whether a subcellular network plays a role in this process. In France, Gourrier will apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to compare local bone architecture acquired at high resolution with electron microscope by the Grandfield’s team to large portions of bone collected with optical microscope by his group at Grenoble. They will analyze the porosity network characteristics at its multiscale and determine the parameters to consider as a function of (de)mineralization.

 “Our collaborative work will provide a level of understanding of fluid transport in bone never achieved before, critical for calcium exchange and homeostasis,” said Carriero. “Our research may change paradigms of how we currently know bone functions.”

About the City College of New York
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