My long term research objective is to understand fundamental control mechanisms at different levels of skeletal integration-from the molecular to the cellular to that of the whole animal-that are responsible for co-ordinated long bone growth. This objective includes the understanding of perturbations of normal growth, with the intent of understanding the possibilities and limitations of intervention procedures for the correction of abnormalities of long bone growth. I divide this research into three major themes:

- analysis of chondrocytic control of differential bone growth in the postnatal animal;

- analysis of altered growth plate activity during naturally occurring and experimentally induced perturbations of growth, including spontaneous disease;

- analysis of routes of vascular access to the postnatal growth plate; and

Particularly important in my most recent research is the analysis of a variety of transgenic and knockout mutants that have specific perturbations leading to abnormal growth plate activity.