Research Projects

Engineering Scarless Repair of Tendon Injuries

We are pioneering regenerative treatments to injuries to flexor tendons in zone II of the hand, which are among the most difficult injuries for surgeons to repair. Restoration of function during healing is often impaired due to the formation of debilitating adhesions and the incidence of repair rupture typically necessitates additional surgery. Our research focuses on the mechanobiology regulating tendon healing with the goal of manipulating target pathways and processes to develop clinically translatable biological therapies to improve outcomes of tendon healing.

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Bone Regeneration and Infection Management using 3D Printed Scaffolds

Our lab is developing alternative fabrication technologies of spacers that can enhance the reproducibility of sustained release of antibiotics over a sufficient period to ensure eradication of bone infections and osteomyelitis, and potentially eliminate the need for the costly reconstruction procedures. Our hypothesis is that image-guided 3D printing of antibiotic-loaded, osteoinductive ceramic scaffolds can be effective in a single-stage reconstruction of infected nonunions with segmental bone loss.

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Non-Invasive Measures of Bone Health and Quality

Bone fragility and fracture risk are conventionally assessed by measuring the bone mineral density (BMD) using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). However, while BMD correlates with bone strength and rigidity in animals and humans, it is nevertheless a poor predictor of fragility fracture risk, in part because the latter is poorly defined. Alternatively, fracture toughness can be a defined quality of bone since it assesses the bone’s resistance to crack propagation and subsequent fracture. Our hypothesis is that we could reliably predict fracture toughness by augmenting measurements from DXA and µCT with Raman spectroscopy.

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