Overview
This $5,000 award honors an investigator who has a sustained ongoing body of focused research in tissue regeneration as it relates to the musculoskeletal system. The winner will present at the ORS 2026 Annual Meeting.
About the Award
The Marshall R. Urist, MD Award was created in 1996, and is currently sponsored by the Orthopaedic Research Society.
This award honors an investigator in tissue regeneration research who has a sustained ongoing body of focused research in the area of tissue regeneration as it relates to the musculoskeletal system.
Nominee Criteria
The nominee must be an ORS member in good standing. The nominee will also be recognized for their sustained commitment to innovation, collaboration, and mentorship. In non-academic sectors, the nominee will typically demonstrate strong contributions in mentorship, practice, or leadership within appropriate positions in industry or medicine. Self-nominations are not accepted.
Submission Package
Submission package must include:
- A single letter of nomination (more than one signatory is acceptable), with special emphasis on the nominee’s substantive impact on the field of tissue regeneration research.
- A recent CV of the nominee in support of the nomination letter.
Selection of the Award Recipient
The selection of the Urist Award recipient will be made by the Awards & Recognition Committee, the ORS President, and additional members as deemed necessary by chair. These individuals are not eligible to be nominated for the award and must remove themselves from award deliberations if they have submitted a letter of support for any of the applicants.
Nominees will be evaluated on the basis of the following criteria, which should be explicitly addressed in the nomination letter:
• Innovation
• Overall impact on the tissue regeneration field (including research and mentoring)
• Collaborative nature
• Continued productivity
• Translational nature
• Professionalism
Award Recognition
The award carries a $5,000 prize and a commemorative plaque. The awardee must be present to accept the award at the ORS Annual Meeting and give a 10 minute presentation.
*For those submitting nominations who are not ORS members please contact Karey Hyland at [email protected]*
Nomination Submissions Now Closed.
Born on June 11, 1914, in Chicago, and reared in a small farm community near Glen, Mich., Marshall R. Urist received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Michigan, earned his M.S. from the University of Chicago and obtained his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1941. He completed his surgical residency at Johns Hopkins and at Massachusetts General Hospital.Dr. Urist joined the U.S. Army Medical Corps in 1943. In 1946 he was assigned to the Pentagon, Headquarters of the Surgeon General, to write with co-author Mather Cleveland their book Orthopaedic Surgery in World War II, In the European Theatre of Operations. After leaving the Army, Dr. Urist taught physiology and research at the University of Chicago before joining the UCLA School of Medicine faculty in 1954, a tenure that was to last for 46 years.
Dr. Urist’s pioneering studies on bone induction and the identification of bone morphogenetic protein, or BMP, revolutionized orthopaedic medicine by helping to establish the newly emerging field of orthopaedic growth factor research. The practical implication of this discovery is to allow more rapid bone healing and even replacement of portions of lost bone tissue. With severe fractures and even loss of limited amounts of bone, BMP has the potential of replacing and bridging the defect.
Dr. Urist served as president of several major national orthopaedic associations and societies including the Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons, the Society of International Research in Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology, and The Hip Society. For 27 years was editor-in-chief of the journal Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research. His academic accomplishments and research efforts, supported by numerous grants, resulted in a bibliography of more than 415 publications.
Dr. Urist was a distinguished leader in the field of orthopaedics nationally and internationally for several decades, and as a clinician, scientist, surgeon, writer and editor, his contributions are legendary. Dr. Urist won numerous academic honors, including two Kappa Delta awards, the Claude Bernard Medal, a Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Sir Henry Wellcome Award. In 1977 Urist was named Doctor Medicin, Honoris Causa from the University of Lund, Sweden. His 1965 Science Magazine article on autoinduction was selected by the National Institute of Health Research as a Landmark Contribution to science in 1997. Dr. Urist passed away on February 4, 2001, at the age of 86 years.
| 2025 | James C. Iatridis, PhD |
| 2024 | Lawrence Bonassar, PhD |
| 2023 | Fergal J. O’Brien BA, BAI, PhD, FAS, CEng, FIEI, FEAMBES, MRIA |
| 2022 | Cato Laurencin MD, PhD |
| 2021 | James Cook, DVM, PhD |
| 2020 | Karen Lyons, PhD |
| 2019 | Rita Kandel, MD |
| 2018 | Molly Stevens, PhD |
| 2017 | Brian Johnstone, PhD |
| 2016 | Clark T. Hung, PhD |
| 2015 | Mauro Alini, PhD |
| 2014 | C. Wayne McIlwraith, BVSc, PhD, Dsc, FRCVS |
| 2013 | Ernst B. Hunziker, MD, PhD |
| 2012 | Frank Barry, PhD |
| 2011 | Jay R. Lieberman, MD |
| 2010 | Vicki Rosen, PhD |
| 2009 | Christopher H. Evans, PhD |
| 2008 | Kyriacos A. (Kerry) Athanasiou, PhD, PE |
| 2007 | Scott P. Bruder, MD, PhD |
| 2006 | Farshid Guilak, PhD |
| 2005 | Antonios G Mikos, PhD |
| 2004 | Rocky S Tuan, PhD |
| 2003 | Steven A. Goldstein, PhD |
| 2002 | Thomas A. Einhorn, MD |
| 2001 | Richard D. Coutts, MD |
| 2000 | Arthur Veis, PhD |
| 1999 | Arnold I. Caplan, PhD |
| 1998 | Ernesto Canalis, MD |
| 1997 | A. Hari Reddi, PhD |
2026 Marshall R. Urist, MD Award Recipient
Pamela Gehron Robey, PhD
Pamela Gehron Robey, PhD is chief of the Skeletal Biology Section of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. She is also the Acting Scientific Director of the NIH Stem Cell Unit. She was a Co-coordinator of the NIH Bone Marrow Stromal Cell Transplantation Center from 2008-2014, and developed the process for generating GLP-grade bone marrow stromal cells in the NIH’s Clinical Center, which were subsequently used in human clinical trials. She has worked in the area of bone and stem cell biology for over 20 years, which includes basic, translational and clinical studies. She has published ~260 peer-reviewed articles to date. Internationally, she is considered to be an expert in bone and skeletal stem cell biology. She has served on numerous editorial boards in the past (Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, Endocrinology, Journal of Dental Research), and was the Senior Editor of Stem Cell Research from 2013-2018, and is currently on the editorial boards of the Stem Cells and Stem Cell Reports, and the advisory board for Cell Stem Cell, in addition to being a regular reviewer for many other journals. She has mentored ~50 research and clinical fellows at various stages of training, the vast majority of whom have progressed in their careers in the field. She is an active member of the NIH and extramural community, and focuses in particular on activities to foster career development of junior investigators in the field, and on advancing translational research into clinical applications.
