Gene mapping and identification for osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is a disease characterized by fragile bones and high susceptibility to low trauma fractures. It is a serious health problem, especially in elderly women. Bone mineral density (BMD) has been employed most commonly as the index for defining and studying osteoporosis. In this presentation, we use examples of our studies in both Caucasians and Chinese to illustrate the approaches used and some main results obtained on 1) characterizing the degree and the inheritance mode of genetic determination of a complex trait such as BMD; 2) identifying and mapping genes for osteoporosis. The purpose of the presentation is to introduce to the medical researchers how and what modern genetics can do to disentangle the mist of an array of genetics factors, the major determinants, for BMD.