Clifford Rosen, MD is the Principal Investigator for the Rosen Musculoskeletal Laboratory at MMCRI and Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Rosen has had more than twenty years of continuous NIH funding, first at The Jackson Laboratory and subsequently at Maine Medical Center Research Institute. The Rosen laboratory is studying mesenchymal stem cell fate with particular reference to the switch between pre-adipocytes and pre- osteoblasts. There are currently four NIH funded projects in this laboratory, focused on a central theme of lineage allocation, its biochemical determinants and its alterations in osteoporosis. An R24 on the biology of marrow adiposity is now in its 6th year at NIDDK and Dr. Rosen is the administrative PI for that four center interdisciplinary grant.
Dr. Rosen is also the Director of the Physiology Core of the MMCRI Stem Cell COBRE (NIGMS) and oversees whole body and cell phenotyping related to metabolic function. The Rosen laboratory has helped to validate osmium microCT for quantitating marrow fat in mouse samples. His work also includes an R21 on control of osteogenic bioenergetics that is now entering its second year. Dr. Rosen is the past president of the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research. He served as an associate editor at Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, senior associate editor at the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research and Aging Cell. He is currently an Associate Editor at New England Journal of Medicine and eLife. He completed membership on the NIH NIAMS Advisory Council, is a standing member of the FDA Endocrinologic and Metabolic Diseases Advisory Committee.