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t m c » p u l s e | o c t o b e r 2 0 1 6 17 Antlers "Berdon, I'd like you to bring me a deer antler home," Lee told Lawrence on the phone about two years ago. Lawrence, who owns a 14,000-acre ranch in South Texas, knows a thing or two about deer. But what Lee wanted with an antler was a puzzler. "Okay, well, I can do that," Lawrence responded. "But what do you need a deer antler for? You want something mounted to put in your house?" No, Lee didn't want a rack to hang above his mantel. Instead, he wanted to analyze the antler as part of a new study for the bone disease program. Deer antlers have fascinated those in the bone field for a long time because bucks are able to grow them back every year, in pattern, over three or four months. Additionally, deer antlers share many properties with human bone and serve as excellent models for bone growth in humans. "It's the fastest regenerating organ in the animal world," Lee said. "We thought, 'Wow, wouldn't it be amazing to understand how that works?'" Lawrence never did bring Lee a deer antler. Instead, Lawrence took him to the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Kingsville on King Ranch, where he was able to collect blood samples from white-tailed deer for his research. Lee and his team became the first to sequence the white- tailed deer's genome, a sequence with more than three billion nucleotides. The process took nine months. Lee believes analyzing the complete deer genome will open a whole new frontier in bone disease research. Understanding which genes regulate antler growth and provide blueprints for their structure could lead to novel bone regeneration therapies to help patients with a range of bone diseases—everyone from 15-year-old Andersson Dyke to 74-year-old Berdon Lawrence. I n literature and the arts, the human skeleton is often a memento mori associated with the macabre and death. But bones give us life. Bones provide our bodies with shape, support and movement, while protecting our vital organs from external damage. Bone marrow contains stem cells that develop important oxygen-carrying red blood cells and infection-fighting white blood cells. Bones also release osteocalcin, a protein that helps regulate the body's blood sugar and fat, and store essential minerals. Bones are primarily made up of three components: Type 1 collagen, the same type of molecule found in the skin; calcium phosphate; and calcium carbonate. The collagen is a long protein that weaves together with two other strands of collagen to create a flexible rope-like structure with grooves along the sides. Crystals of calcium phosphate and calcium carbonate attach within these grooves to provide rigidity and strength. When a bone fractures, blood clots around the site of the break and specialized immune cells, called phagocytes, devour bacteria, foreign particles and dead cells to protect the bone from infection. Cartilage cells, called chondroblasts, then produce the collagen matrix around the fracture to connect the bones, allowing osteoblasts—cells that synthesize bones— to begin calcifying and building new bone. A L L A B O U T BONES Jacqueline T. Hecht, Ph.D., associate dean for research at the UTHealth School of Dentistry, joined the Rolanette and Berdon Lawrence Bone Disease Program of Texas as a co-director in 2014.