NEWS RELEASE 17 April 2012

Grants available for school children to research bone health

School children in Australia are being given the chance to research bone health in a first for the Bone Health Foundation which has opened its national grants program to schools and community groups to conduct research or projects into all musculoskeletal health and allied conditions. Now in its 21st year, the competitive grants program has expanded to consider any application that supports the Foundations mission to achieve healthy bones for every body.

One in three Australians suffer from a musculoskeletal condition such as arthritis, osteoporosis, scoliosis or bone cancer with more than $4.6 billion public health dollars spent per annum on helping them live a better life says Dr Bruce Foster, chairman of the Bone Health Foundation. As part of our organisations evolution and the increasing public health cost of caring for over 6 million Australians with musculoskeletal conditions, we want to find better ways to keep bones healthy for life, Dr Foster says. Weve opened the grants program to a much wider audience and want to hear from anyone in Australia whose research or project will help us achieve our goal of healthy bones for every body, he says.

Grants awarded in the past have funded research into Brittle Bone Disease at Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Victoria, a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Westmead Hospital in Sydney and a PhD scholarship at Australian National University in ACT.

Australian researchers, institutions, schools or community groups interested in applying for a grant can contact The Bone Health Foundation on (08) 8231 7884 or email info@bonehealth.org. Applications for funding close at 5:30pm (CST) on 1st June 2012. cont

Page 2 of 2

- Ends For further information please contact: Sarah Thomas, The Social PR Consultancy, 0434 498 078, sarah@thesocialpr.co

About The Bone Health Foundation The Bone Health Foundation, formerly known as the Bone Growth Foundation, was founded by Dr Bruce Foster in 1991 as a self-funded not-for-profit organisation. It was originally established to provide infrastructure and support for new research into bone growth to find better, less painful, treatments for the children affected by crippling growth problems. The Bone Health Foundation has evolved with the vision to expand its research criteria to consider any study that improves the health of the musculoskeletal system and its effect on the individuals wellbeing.