Genetic factors and hormones in metabolic diseases

Our research in the field of bone pathology will be oriented toward medical intervention in patients with total hip arthroplasty. We expect to lower or even to prevent early periprosthetic bone loos observed postoperatively in these patients and so to contribute to better results of local surgical bone therapy. At the same time we will test the value of different bone metabolism and genetic markers in predicting early postoperative bone mineral density changes and/or susceptibility to medical therapy. That kind of research, focused on the local periprosthetic changes, that are known not to be dependent on the baseline bone mineral density status, has not been done yet. The second part of our project will deal with renal functional reserve as a possible early predictor of diabetic nephropathy. As endothelial dysfunction is supossed to be important in the development of diabetic nephropathy, we shall include markers of endothelial function into the models to predict the development of diabetic nephropathy. The final part of our project includes research of molecular processes of insulin resistence that seem to play pivotal role in the pathogenesis of diabetes mellitus type 2. In vitro investigations will be done on fat tissue of patients with gestational diabetes, which can serve as a human model for identifying the earliest difects in insulin action.