David Waning, PhD - Penn State Cancer Institute
Researcher Profile

David Waning, PhD
Research Interests
Dr. David Waning's research focuses on the emerging importance of bone-muscle crosstalk in aging and disease.
The overarching goal of his research program is to discover and characterize molecular mechanisms that impair musculoskeletal health in disease and aging. Bone and muscle are tightly coupled during growth and development, and also during aging and disease yet the cellular and molecular mechanisms linking these two tissues are not well understood. The Waning lab is developing novel therapeutic approaches that improve musculoskeletal health in pre-clinical models of cancer and chemotherapy-induced sequelae, osteoporosis and aging.
The major aims of Dr. Waning's research are to identify and characterize signal mediators of bone-muscle crosstalk that affect musculoskeletal health. He is especially interested in identifying targets of oxidative stress that affect bone and muscle function; understanding muscle weakness in cachexia; cachexia and the relative contribution of muscle wasting and contractile dysfunction; and bone-muscle crosstalk in rare bone diseases.
- Bone and Bones
- Muscles
- Neoplasms
- Skeletal Muscle
- Muscle Weakness
- Neoplasm Metastasis
- Proteins
- Therapeutics
- Drug Therapy
- Bone Neoplasms
- Breast Neoplasms
- Cachexia