Meet Your 2026 Spotlight Speakers and Their Topics

Hover or tap and hold each photo to view the speaker’s talk title. Talk date and time will be announced soon.

Smart Materials in Orthopaedics: From Infection Defense to Next-Generation Joint Replacement

Valentin Antoci, MD, PhD
Brown University Health

Mechanobiology of Skeletal Development

Joel Boerckel, PhD
University of Pennsylvania

Improving Individualized Care Through Advanced Structure-function Analysis

Stephanie Cone, PhD
University of Delaware

Wrist Arthroplasty: Why Are We So Far Behind the Other Joints?

JJ Trey Crisco, PhD
Brown University Health

Enhancing CRISPR Strategies for Precision Musculoskeletal Regeneration via Deep Learning and Biomaterials Engineering

Tomas Gonzalez-Fernandez, PhD
Lehigh University

Composite Scaffold Platforms for Regenerating Complex Craniofacial Bone: Integrating Bioactivity, Vascularization, and Design Optimization

Katherine Hixon, PhD
Dartmouth College

Synovial Fibroblasts as Drivers of Osteoarthritis

Tristan Maerz, PhD
ETH Zurich

Integrating Preoperative, Intraoperative, and Postoperative Data: Advancing Evidence Based Orthopaedic Surgery

Nicolas Piuzzi, MD
Cleveland Clinic

One Health in Action: Multi-Species Models of Joint Disease and Tendinopathy

Heidi Reesink, VMD, PhD
University of California, Davis

Cell Therapy for Low Back Pain: Hype or Hope?

Gianluca Vadalà, MD, PhD
Campus Biomedico University

Representing Guest Nation: Italy

Predictive in vitro and in silico Modeling of Mechanical Microenvironments

Stefaan Verbruggen, PhD
Queen Mary University of London