New Insights in Musculoskeletal Pathophysiology: From Space to Fish, and Beyond

Dear Colleagues,

Musculoskeletal disorders, mainly comprised of bone, muscle, tendon and joint diseases, represent one of the most common health problems worldwide with an enormous socioeconomic burden. During the last 20 years, new advances have been made in understanding the pathophysiology of the musculoskeletal system. As a result of these developments, novel pathogenetic pathways have been identified leading to the discovery of new molecular targets for therapeutic approaches. Innovative methodologies, such as microgravity conditions, mechanical loading experiments and 3D cellular models as well as novel biological approaches such as nutritional programming, chrono-biology, computational biology and utilisation of pioneering animal species, have led the way to elucidate the mechanisms of musculoskeletal diseases like sarcopenia, osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. In this Special Issue of the journal Life, we aim to collect articles that encompass the latest developments in musculoskeletal biology and provide a comprehensive update in the literature accessible to scientists from diverse fields. Thus, we wish to invite investigators from basic, clinical and translational musculoskeletal research or closely related disciplines to contribute with original research articles, but also with reviews and hypothesis-driven papers.

Dr. Ioannis Kanakis
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Life is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• bone biology
• muscle physiology
• musculoskeletal disorders
• microgravity
• mechanical loading
• circadian clocks
• bioinformatics