Question

You are a biomedical researcher who is interested in designing a drug to increase bone density. You have decided you can take one of two approaches: (1) design a drug that stimulates bone to be built faster, or (2) design a drug that prevents bone from breaking down. To begin this process, you need to study the cells that would likely respond to either drug 1 or drug 2. Which cells are these?

Answer 1

Bone tissue consists of some metabolically active cells which are responsible for bone remodeling which include the formation of new bone cells and degradation of old bone cells.

The most important cells in bone remodeling are osteoclast and osteoblast cells. Osteoblast cells play important role in the formation of new bone cells by releasing an osteoid matrix that contains proteins and minerals.

Osteoclast cells have opposite role than osteoblast cell because they release the calcium and minerals from old cell in the blood and cause bone mineralization.

Therefore for the first approach, we need to study the osteoblast cell because it helps to build the bone and for the second approach we need to study the osteoclast cell that would likely respond to drug 2 as it is responsible for the breakdown of bones.

Answer 2

A drug that stimulates bone to be built faster should work on the cell that creates bone. The cell that responsible for bone creation is fibroblast cells.
A drug that prevents the bone from breaking down should work on the cell that degrades bone. The cell that degrades bone is called osteoclast.
Osteoclast and fibroblast will work together to maintain the bone density. The process also called bone remodelling.