Mary Schweitzer to Discuss Dinosaur Findings at the 2005 ECTS-IBMS Joint Scientific Meeting

Washington, DC—Biologist Mary H. Schweitzer, Ph.D., author of the ground-breaking research paper recently published in Science on the discovery of soft tissue in dinosaur bone, will discuss how these studies relate to the evolution of modern-day animals during the Second Joint Meeting of the European Calcified Tissue Society and the International Bone and Mineral Society in Geneva, Switzerland, 25-29 June 2005.

“Schweitzer’s research contradicts what we thought to be true about the evolution of dinosaurs and the fossilization process, causing scientists everywhere to re-examine the assumptions of their research,” said IBMS President Gregory R. Mundy. “Attendees will benefit from hearing about her remarkable advances in the field of evolutionary bone biology.”

The discovery of soft tissue in a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex has been publicized in scientific journals and on television programs around the world. Following her initial discovery, Schweitzer has uncovered additional dinosaur specimens with the same soft tissues.

At the Comparative Endocrinology of Calcium Regulation (CECR) workshop on 25 June during the ECTS-IBMS Joint Meeting, Schweitzer will discuss the significance of these new findings with regard to the evolution and extinction of dinosaurs, as well as the link to modern-day animals.

Schweitzer is the assistant professor of paleontology at the North Carolina State University with a joint appointment at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. She will be attending the Geneva meeting with help from an unrestricted educational grant supported by the International Bone and Mineral Society and Roche & GSK: A joint force in osteoporosis.

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The International Bone and Mineral Society (IBMS) is the international society working to promote the generation and dissemination of knowledge about bone and mineral metabolism. Together with the European Calcified Tissue Society (ECTS), IBMS is hosting the Second Joint Meeting of the ECTS-IBMS to offer participants the opportunity to enhance their knowledge of bone biology, bone diseases and their correlation to mineral metabolism.

The Joint Meeting, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 25-29 June 2005, brings together some 3,000 researchers, clinicians, physicians and other allied health professionals. State-of-the-art research on bone and mineralized tissue, along with diagnostic and therapeutic aspects of metabolic bone diseases will be presented through symposia, workshops, training courses, lectures, posters and Meet the Professor sessions. For more information, please visit www.ects-ibms-2005.org.

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