Svetlana Komarova, PhD

The main subject of our studies is an osteoclast, the cell uniquely capable of destroying hard tissues in the body, such as bone and dentin. Osteoclasts play important role in many physiological processes, such as development and maintenance of healthy bone tissue, tooth eruption and calcium homeostasis. As they are very destructive, they need to be tightly regulated in response to physiological needs of an organism. In pathological situations, such as rheumatoid arthritis, periodontitis, cancer metastases to bone, abnormal stimulation of osteoclasts results in often irreversible loss of bone and other mineralized tissues. Our studies aim to investigate how osteoclast formation and activity are regulated in physiological and pathological conditions and how osteoclasts communicate with other cells in the bone microenvironment, such as osteoblasts, immune cells, red blood cells, and invading cancer cells.