profile photo of Nicola Patridge in front of grey background

Nicola Partridge, PhD

Research Professor

Education

B.Sc. (Hons) 1st Class, University of Western Australia, 1973
Ph.D. in Biochemistry, University of Western Australia, 1981

Bio

Nicola Partridge recently joined CABM as Research Professor and Resident Faculty. Previously, she was Chair of Basic Science and Craniofacial Biology at NYU College of Dentistry and prior to that Chair of the Department of Physiology & Biophysics at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Her research has focused on parathyroid hormone (PTH) regulation of gene expression by the osteoblast. In her present projects, her laboratory is investigating how PTH, acting through protein kinase A (PKA), signals to the nucleus of osteoblasts to regulate transcription of a gene, receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa B ligand (Rankl), which activates osteoclasts and thus, stimulates bone breakdown. In a second project, Dr. Partridge’s laboratory is screening for a small molecule activator of the salt-inducible kinases (SIK2 and SIK3) that could be used to block the PTH pathway as a possible way to treat several diseases of this pathway. Dr. Partridge has mentored many students, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty. Research in the Partridge lab has been continuously supported by NASA, NIH or industry awards.

Research Focus

Parathyroid hormone signaling in osteoblasts; gene transcription

Resident Faculty at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine

AAAS Fellow

ASBMR Fellow

Recipient of the Louis V. Avioli Founders Award for Basic Research of the ASBMR

Dr. Partridge has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Bone and Mineral Research (JBMR), Calcified Tissue International and was an Associate Editor of Physiological Reviews and is currently Associate Editor of FASEB BioAdvances and JBMR. She was a standing member and then Chair of the NIH Skeletal Biology Development and Disease Study Section. She is currently a member of the Laureate Awards Committee of the Endocrine Society and an organizer of the Endocrine Society Special Interest Group on Bone and Mineral Metabolism.

Professional Organizations: ASBMR, AAAS, ASBMB, Endocrine Society, Association of Osteobiology, FASEB

Within CABM:

Donald Nyangahu, Department of Pharmacology, & CABM – Effects of the gut bacteriome in infants exposed to HIV but uninfected on bone growth in mouse models.

Martin Blaser, Departments of Medicine and Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, & CABM-Effects of postnatal antibiotics on bone metabolism in mice.

Within Rutgers:

Biju Parekkedan, Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering –Use of AAV for in vivo delivery of parathyroid hormone.

Sue Shapses, Department of Nutritional Sciences, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences -Role of chemokines in PTH action in humans.

Outside Rutgers:

Henry Kronenberg, Massachusetts General Hospital Endocrine Unit and Harvard University –Activation of PKA in osteoblasts in mouse models and effects on bone phenotype.

Lawrence Kirschner, The Ohio State University – Activation of PKA in osteoblasts in mouse models and effects on bone phenotype.

Marc Montminy, Salk Institute -Role of CRTC2 and CRTC3 in bone and PTH action in mouse models.

Lukasz Witek, New York University – Biomechanical analyses of bones of mouse models.

Bhaskar Das, University of Buffalo -Synthesis of LKB1 activators

May Khanna, University of Florida -Modeling of SIK activators and their use

Keith Woerpel, New York University - Modeling of SIK activators and their use

1.
Raggatt L, Partridge N. Cellular and molecular mechanisms of bone remodeling. The Journal of biological chemistry. 2010;285(33):25103-8. doi:10.1074/jbc.R109.041087.
1.
Le Henaff C, Ricarte F, Finnie B, et al. Abaloparatide at the Same Dose Has the Same Effects on Bone as PTH (1-34) in Mice. Journal of bone and mineral research : the official journal of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research. 2020;35(4):714-724. doi:10.1002/jbmr.3930.
1.
Siddiqui J, Le Henaff C, Johnson J, He Z, Rifkin D, Partridge N. Osteoblastic monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) mediation of parathyroid hormone’s anabolic actions in bone implicates TGF-β signaling. Bone. 2021;143:115762. doi:10.1016/j.bone.2020.115762.
1.
Le Henaff C, Finnie B, Pacheco M, He Z, Johnson J, Partridge N. Abaloparatide Has the Same Catabolic Effects on Bones of Mice When Infused as PTH (1-34). JBMR plus. 2023;7(2):e10710. doi:10.1002/jbm4.10710.
1.
Mosca M. Differential Effects of PTH (1-34), PTHrP (1-36), and Abaloparatide on the Murine Osteoblast Transcriptome. Journal of the Endocrine Society. 2023;8(1):bvad156. doi:10.1210/jendso/bvad156.