Bone and Mineral Metabolism: Where Are We, Where Are We Going, and How Will We Get There?

Advances in diagnosing and treating metabolic bone diseases will require ways to assess cellular signaling within human bones, ideally noninvasively. Only then will we be able to fully harness the increased molecular understanding of bone that derives from human genetics and model organisms, primarily rodents. New hormones regulating mineral ion homeostasis surely remain to be discovered, probably through advances in the study of human genetic disease.