Saima Khan was awarded the highest award "Shihao Liu - Xianyi Zhu Memorial Best Paper Award" in the 9th International Conference on Osteoporosis and Bone Research, held in Suzhou on 17-20th October 2018.

This conference was organized by the Chinese Medical Association (CMA), the Chinese Society of Osteoporosis and Bone Mineral Research (CSOBMR), and the International Chinese Academy of Chinese Musculoskeletal Research Society (ICMRS), with 1500 people from a wide range of basic, clinical, and translational medicine in the field of osteoporosis and bone mineral research. Top experts and professors from China, the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and other countries shared their up-to-date findings. It was highly rich in educational and scientific content where extensive review and update of cutting edge research was discussed. Also, excellent young and middle-aged doctors and scholars were encouraged by the conference academic committee.

Saima Khan, a foreign student from Pakistan in our school, joined the conference. Part of her PhD study "Osteocytic Wnt Niche protects unloading-induced bone loss via increased trabeculization" was selected as an oral presentation at the conference. Saima Khan studied in China on the Belt and Road Initiative and carried out research work in the Skeletal Development and Regeneration Laboratory of the Institute of Life Sciences of Chongqing Medical University from 2016. Under the guidance of Professor Xiaolin Tu, she aims to find a way to protect bone loss in elderly patients, especially astronauts. In her work, a special mouse model was generated to activate Wnt signaling in osteocytes to promote osteoblast and osteoclast differentiation, thus achieving such a bone protection, revealing a new insight for medicine. A total of 10 people received such a award and there are four people from mainland China.