Zurich researchers want to heal bone fractures using vibrations

Zurich researchers want to heal bone fractures with vibration Keystone-SDA

Vibration helps bones to grow. In a new study, Zurich researchers have shown how such mechanical stimuli influence the genes in the bones. They hope to use this to heal broken bones more quickly in the future.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

The study results published in the scientific journal Science could form the basis for therapeutic approaches against bone fractures and bone loss, announced the Swiss federal technology institute (ETH Zurich) on Monday.

Researchers led by Ralph Müller from ETH Zurich had already shown three years ago in a study with mice that vibrations help bones to grow. “Only when we understand these mechanisms will we be able to develop new therapies based on them,” said Neashan Mathavan, first author of the new study, in the ETH Zurich press release.

+ Studying bones in the lab

Mice with broken bones

For the new study, the researchers therefore created an atlas of gene activity in healing mouse bones. To this end, they broke the femurs of four mice, as detailed in the study. They supported the healing of the bones with vibration therapy. For each point in the bone, they determined which genes were active during healing and which were not.

+ AI can reduce the number of animals needed for research

This enabled them to show that certain genes were specifically active in the areas of the bone that were subjected to high mechanical stress. Conversely, genes that inhibit bone formation were not active in these areas.

The researchers now want to use these findings to find new therapeutic approaches. According to ETH Zurich, in addition to vibration therapy, the targeted use of drugs that activate or inhibit the desired genes would also be conceivable.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].