We’re very excited to share that we’ve been awarded a 5-year, $3.2 million grant from NIH / NIAMS (National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Disease) to continue our research on anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) function in the growing knee joint! This project is an R01 renewal grant that builds on our previous research that established sex- and region-specific differences in function and cross-sectional area of the ACL’s AM and PL bundles. These differences appear around early adolescence and persist throughout adolescence. Now, we will examine how sex hormones impact bundle size and function. Specifically, we will look at the effect of puberty onset on long-term ACL bundle size and function. We will also study the effect of cyclic hormone levels on short-term ACL bundle size and function throughout the normal estrus cycle and if stabilizing hormone levels reduces these changes.
We hope that this research will establish a clear and direct link between natural changes in sex hormones during adolescence and ACL size or function. The information gained from this research can also support human clinical trials into injury risk reduction and new potential treatment strategies. Collaborators on this project include Drs. Lauren Schnabel, Jorge Piedrahita, and Emily Griffith at NC State, along with Dr. Jeffrey Spang at UNC, Dr. Alon Conley at UC Davis, and Dr. Sandra Shultz at UNC-Greensboro.
You can read a summary of the project here.
Preliminary data for this proposal was collected with support from the UNC Thurston Arthritis Research Center.
Learn more about our previous research related to this work:
- Degenerative changes are associated with severity of anterior cruciate ligament injury within the skeletally immature joint (Pre-print)
- Neo-Natal Castration Leads to Subtle Differences in Porcine Anterior Cruciate Ligament Morphology and Function in Adolescence (2024)
- Sex-specific biomechanics and morphology of the anterior cruciate ligament during skeletal growth in a porcine model (2022)
- Age- and Sex-Specific Joint Biomechanics in Response to Partial and Complete Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury in the Porcine Model (2022)
- Age- and sex-specific differences in ACL and ACL bundle size during adolescent growth (2022)
- Joint laxity varies in response to partial and complete anterior cruciate ligament injuries throughout skeletal growth (2020)
- In Situ Joint Stiffness Increases During Skeletal Growth but Decreases Following Partial and Complete Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury (2019)
- Tissue-specific changes in size and shape of the ligaments and tendons of the porcine knee during post-natal growth (2019)