Dane Webster
Dane Webster is an aspiring physiological researcher, beginning his PhD in 2024 within the School of Human Sciences at the University of Western Australia. Dane’s work predominantly revolves around the nuclear paraspeckle, with a focus on its involvement in stress scenarios on a cell and animal level.

Pathologies of the musculoskeletal system mostly occur as we age resulting in weak bone but can also encompass injury and diseases like osteoporosis. In youth, healthy bone is maintained by regular exercise where adaption occurs after mechanically induced damage. This is sensed on a cellular level in osteocytes which coordinate and mediate the increased properties of bone observed after exercise. Paraspeckles are mechanically induced cellular structures that can be involved in these gene expression changes that respond to mechanical stress within bone cells. For example, paraspeckles have an importance in bone remodelling in response to loading upon osteoblasts, like promoting bone matrix formation, with their complete absence in mice resulting in porotic bone. Building upon this, Dane’s research is interested in investigating this role of paraspeckles further within the primary mechanosensors of mature bone - osteocyte cells. Moreover, in a collaboration with TeleMedVet, investigating the role of paraspeckles in response to chronic exercise loading within racehorses will provide an in vivo application of this phenomenon. The aim of these investigations is to elucidate the paraspeckle as a potential novel target and/or biomarker for musculoskeletal therapies.
Supervisors
Prof Archa Fox, A/Prof Dominique Blache, A/Prof Nathan Pavlos, A/Prof Yu Suk Choi, A/Prof Tony Bakker, Dr Song Zhang & Dr Luoyang Ding.
Contact
Keywords: Paraspeckles | Osteocytes | Mechanobiology