Institute/Lab/Company
Department of Orthopaedics, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Bioengineering Labs, Rhode Island Hospital
Center for Biomedical Engineering, Brown University

Profile
I received my doctorate degree in Mechanical Engineering (1996), MS in Biomedical Engineering (1991), and BS in Bioengineering (1983) from the University of Vermont. After receiving my BS, I worked as a research engineer for the Department of Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation at UVM for several years, during which I developed my passion for orthopaedic research, before pursuing graduate studies. I joined the research faculty of the Department of Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation at UVM in 1996, where I was fortunate to have great mentors, including Drs. Bruce Beynnon, Robert Johnson, Claude Nichols, and Per Renstrom. I was then recruited to the Department of Orthopaedics at Brown Medical School in June 2003.

Specific Area of Interest
The focus of my lab is to translate novel solutions for the treatment of orthopaedics injuries from bench to bedside. My primary research interests focus on the lower extremity with a particular interest in knee ligament injuries, soft tissue biomechanics and biomedical instrumentation. Recent translational projects include the development of experimental models to investigate healing and the progression of osteoarthritis following ACL surgery, the development of tissue engineering methods to stimulate ligament healing, and the advancement of methods to non-invasively monitor the integrity of healing soft tissues.

What are you currently working on?
Several projects are ongoing. 1) We are performing 15-year follow-up of our randomized controlled trial comparing two initial graft tensioning procedures on ACL reconstruction outcomes and post-traumatic osteoarthritis. At 7 years post-surgery, there were minimal differences between the two graft tension groups and both groups were presenting with post-traumatic osteoarthritis when compared to the uninjured control group. 2) In a collaboration with Dr. Martha Murray at Boston Children’s Hospital, we performed multiple preclinical and FDA regulated clinical studies to translate her novel ACL repair scaffold from the lab bench to clinical use. The BEAR scaffold received approval from the FDA in December 2020. 3) We are currently optimizing MR imaging protocols to non-invasively evaluate ligament and graft healing after ACL surgery. We have shown that specific MR parameters are predictive of the biomechanical properties of the healing structure and are reflective of the tissue histology. 4) In a collaboration with Dr. Gregory Jay, we have shown that the intra-articular administration of recombinant PRG4 reduces cartilage damage following meniscal injury, and we are planning new studies to translate this to human use.

What has been the biggest challenge/issue for you lately in your research?
I think the biggest challenge is to maintain support for the lab. So far, I’ve been fortunate, but it is something I constantly worry about. It will be interesting to see the long-term ramifications of COVID-19 on the future of orthopaedic research.

What project(s) are you looking forward to in the near future?
In an ongoing collaboration with Dr. Martha Murray at Boston Children’s Hospital, we are developing a hydrogel for the treatment of osteoarthritis. We currently have DoD funding to translate the hydrogel to the clinic, and we hope to show that the promising results in our pre-clinical models will translate to patients with early osteoarthritis.

What advice would you give investigators who are just starting out in the field?
You can’t do it alone. Orthopaedics is a multidisciplinary field. To be successful, one must build a network of collaborators with different perspectives to be able to solve orthopaedic problems.

Is there anything in your career/research that, if you had it to do over, you would change?
I have been very fortunate in the way that my career has panned out, so I would not change anything. One might argue that having done all my training at one institution was a drawback. It may have been good for me to do a postdoc elsewhere to get additional perspectives, but I seemed to have done OK despite this.

What is your most memorable moment in your career?
There are many memorable moments. The offer to join the faculty of the Department of Orthopaedics at Brown Medical School by Dr. Michael Ehrlich was one of those. He provided me with the resources and encouragement that would allow any motivated individual to be successful in an academic career.