
The team, which includes principal investigators bone biologist Dr. Meghan McGee-Lawrence, wants to keep stem cells focused on making bone and muscle. “We are looking at stem cells as a group and what is happening to them as we age,” Hill noted. The other thing we are looking at is their survival and their numbers.” “This includes a loss of direction so they aren’t as functional as they were before. “We are trying to figure out why the changes are happening and if we can target those cells to make them want to make bone again,” McGee-Lawrence said. Much as the function of bone and muscle is interwoven, so is their health and the factors that promote their loss or survival also are similar, said Hamrick.Ī major culprit in their breakdown appears to be the metabolite kynurenine, a byproduct of the essential amino acid tryptophan. Tryptophan is among the nine amino acids our body can’t make and we must consume in foods like turkey and soybeans so we can perform essentials like making protein.

The researchers also think the fuel sends signals to cells, ones that aging stem cells apparently don’t get.

The unhealthy metabolite is the result of a natural action called oxidation, which occurs anytime cells use oxygen.
#AUGUSTA HAPPY BONES FREE#
Particularly with age, the free radicals produced by oxidation can also damage cells. Kynurenine results when the enzyme, indoleamine 2,3 dioxygenase, or IDO, which a variety of tissues make to help moderate an immune response, oxidizes tryptophan. I wish him the best of luck as it’s a record that deserves an audience.Over time, kynurenine piles up and appears to alter the dynamic of bone and muscle formation.Īgain, somewhat ironically, the many functions of essential amino acids include working as antioxidants, so the researchers are putting together nutrient cocktails – minus tryptophan and with reduced protein content – that they hope can reverse age-related damage. Woody will, I feel certain, spend considerable time and effort promoting and playing, doing his level best to ensure this collection of songs is heard. Such is the case for the working musician. The future of this independently recorded and released record is still very much in the air. The music is also punctuated with guest appearances that I feel should be kept Star Wars-style surprises. That’s not so surprising as the current incarnation of the Happy Bones band includes some significant Augusta talent, including the semi-legendary Jo Bones, one of this writer’s favorite bass players. It’s an amalgamation of musical styles and, more particularly, those musical cues that have proved most popular and influential in Augusta music. There are nods to hip hop, hippie rock – nearly any classic pop form capable of telling a substantial story.

There is acoustic folk and hard riffing, deep funk and Southern boogie. While always cohesive, the eponymous album draws from a variety of musical sources. One of the more interesting aspects of Happy Bones is how difficult it becomes to pinpoint and describe its very distinctive sound. He is, in fact, an artist of impressive musical means and now, with the very first Happy Bones album – a record some 25 years in the making – he’s ready to prove his point. He has something significant he wants to share and it extends far beyond the broken-couch blues often associated with him. It was, to be sure, a comfortable place and one I certainly enjoyed visiting from time to time. My thought has always been that Woody felt a certain sense of satisfaction, writing and performing in the very finite universe of his own creation. It’s an act that local musicians have always thought highly of, that fans have followed from one bar gig to the next but has flown, somewhat criminally, below the radar. The performance project of one Judge Shawn “Woody” Wood, the Bones, in its many varied forms, has been gracing Augusta stages since the mid-1990s. That, quite clearly, is not the case for the Augusta act Happy Bones. Far too often I see acts perform before they are prepared or, even worse, enter the studio. There’s nothing more painful than art that seems incomplete, ill-considered or dashed off.

It is, I believe, important for an artist to take their time.
