Between Bedside and Bench in 2009

Osteoporosis researchers do not suffer from a lack of potential drug targets—so one challenge is to decide which ones to focus on. Yongwon Choi, Matthew C. Walsh and Joseph R. Arron now examine several molecules involved in bone biology and assess their prospects. In a second commentary, Cliff Rosen analyzes findings that serotonin, derived from the gut, regulates bone formation. The findings not only could lead to new drug targets, they also could help explain clinical data that serotonin reuptake inhibitors—widely prescribed as antidepressants—weaken bones.

Numerous drugs have been invented to counteract heart failure, but some have not lived up to their initial promise. As David Kass explains, the development of drugs to increase cardiac contractility has been particularly frustrating—but failure is also leading to new biological insights and new experimental approaches. Mark Anderson and Peter Mohler explore new ways of targeting calcium-mediated signaling in the heart—with a focus on combating heart failure by targeting 'local' forms of signaling in heart muscle.