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Anne Loucks, Ph.D.,
Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences |
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 Dr. Loucks is a professor of physiology in the Department of Biological Sciences. She
received her doctorate from the University of California at Santa Barbara and completed
post-doctoral training at the University of California at San Diego. Her Endocrinology &
Bone Biology Laboratory focuses on the refining nutritional guidelines to better
protect the reproductive and skeletal health of female athletes, military personnel and
other women who strive to improve their performance in physically demanding
activities. This research is motivated by the high prevalence of menstrual disorders
and stress fractures in such women. She has specific expertise in sex hormone analyses
and the assessment of bone morphology and strength. Her laboratory has previously been
funded by the NIH and is currently funded by the Department of Defense. She has published
more than 60 scholarly articles. Dr. Loucks’ research centers on conducting randomized,
prospective, controlled experiments investigating the physiological mechanisms
mediating the influences of diet and exercise on the endocrine regulation of fuel
metabolism, reproductive function and bone turnover in men and women. Limitations of
existing technologies for assessing skeletal health have led to her current effort to
further develop a new non-invasive, radiation-free technology for directly
measuring bone strength in humans in vivo. Bone strength, which depends on bone protein
as well as bone mineral, is the quantity that actually determines fracture risk. If
successfully developed, this Mechanical Response Tissue Analysis may have a wide
range of applications in clinical medicine as well as academic research, including
better diagnosis of bone disease and abnormal adolescent skeletal development,
and more frequent monitoring of fracture healing as well as skeletal responses to
exercise and immobilization, nutrition, and pharmacological therapy.
To view her publications please link to
PubMed.
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