Nathan Pavlos

Sorting-Out the Skeleton: The role of intracellular trafficking in bone homeostasis and disease.

Orphan transporters in bone homeostasis and disease

Dr Nathan Pavlos is an Associate Professor and Head of the Bone Biology & Disease Laboratory, School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Western Australia. He completed his undergraduate (1999) and PhD studies in Bone Cell Biology (2005) at UWA. In 2007 Dr Pavlos was awarded a NHMRC CJ Martin (Biomedical) Overseas Research Fellowship and carried out his postdoctoral training at the Max-Planck-Institute (MPI) for Biophysical Chemistry, Germany, from 2007-2009 with Prof Reinhard Jahn where he worked on the molecular regulation of synaptic vesicle exo-endocytosis in neurons. In 2010 Dr Pavlos returned to UWA to start up his own laboratory with a focus on intracellular trafficking and transport in bone cells.

IMED3003: Body Systems & Disease III (Unit Coordinator)

SURG5850: Masters of Surgery (Research Coorinator)

Path2210: Fundamentals of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Path 3308-Pathology and Laboratory Medicine II
Unit Coordinator (2010-2015)

SMED4221 Research Foundations Unit (MD Scholarly Activity)


Supervision: Principal and co-supervisor of successfully completed Honours, Masters and PhD students.

Dr Pavlos’s current research interests focus on the molecular mechanisms of bone-resorbing osteoclasts, the major cellular protagonists underlying a number of highly debilitating musculoskeletal diseases including osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, Paget's disease and tumour-mediated bone loss. To achieve this, he combines innovative microscopy-based platforms together with high-through-put screens including integrative genomic, quantitative proteomics and phenomics to systematically decipher the core molecular machinery underlying bone resorption. Along with his focus on osteoclasts and bone biology, he also has a long-standing interest in the molecular regulation and dynamics of intracellular trafficking, a process essential for normal cellular function and is often perturbed in many different diseases including skeletal disorders, neurological disease, cancer, inflammation and pathogen invasion.

Dr Pavlos is also a Graduate Research Coordinator for the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences