Author: Stephanie Teeter

Biomedical Engineering

Grant funded to study pediatric ACL reconstruction

Our group was recently awarded a 5-year, $3.2 million grant from the NIH / NIAMS (National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Disease) to build on our previous work studying pediatric anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury treatment. ACL injuries continue to be a significant problem in the US, affecting more than 250,000 people annually, and the fastest rising injury rates are in children and adolescents with significant growth still remaining. Reconstruction of a completely torn ACL (ACLR) is becoming increasingly popular to treat these injuries in children of all ages to restore knee stability and permit the return to sports while limiting secondary injuries to other structures. Despite our awareness that failure rates after ACLR for pediatric patients are higher than they are for adults, comparisons of long-term joint degeneration between different surgical techniques have not been done. The goal of this project is to determine how ACL reconstruction technique can influence long-term graft remodeling and joint degeneration in the pediatric knee joint. Such information will allow us to provide better guidance for pediatric patients dealing with complete or partial ACL injuries. 

Collaborators on this project include Drs. Lauren Schnabel and Logan Opperman at NC State, along with Dr. Jeffrey Spang at UNC-Chapel Hill. 

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, UNC NC TraCS Institute, and the NC State Office of Research and Innovation

Valli wins 3rd Place Poster at CMI event

Valli’s poster was recognized during The Comparative Medicine Institute (CMI)’s Research, Education & Innovation Summit. Her work with Melika and Ramair (from Danny Freytes’ lab) titled “Developing an Acellular Therapeutic for Intra-Articular Healing Through the Combination of Matrix-Bound Vesicles and Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Derived Exosomes” was awarded third place in the Undergraduate Poster Award competition. 

Four TORL Students Present at the 2025 OUR Symposium

We had four of our lab’s undergrads present at the OUR (Office of Undergraduate Research) spring symposium. They presented posters related to the research that they’ve been doing in the lab the last two semesters. 

  • Anna presented her work on the HKJC project that she’s been doing with Steph
  • Osa presented her work on PLPs (platelet-like particles) and wound healing with Melika
  • Sofie presented her work with Margaret on the ACL project
  • Mitchell presented his work with Jacob on the ACL project

Jacob Presents at Grad Student Symposium

Jacob was selected as one of seven BME students to present at the 2025 Graduate Student Research Symposium. His poster, titled ‘Impact of Sex Hormones on Size, Organization, and Mechanics of the Adolescent Porcine Anterior Cruciate Ligament and Potential Mechanisms Through Estrogen Receptors’ focused on his dissertation research. You can see the abstract here (click ‘Abstracts’ for 2025 then go to the top of page 70 in the pdf that opens)

 

Halloween 2024

Another year, and more great costumes! Our group did Inside Out characters. 

From left to right: 

Back row: Matt as Bing Bong, Steph as Sadness, Margaret as Disgust, and Jacob as Embarassment

Front Row: Ricky as Anxiety, Melika as Joy, and Rahul as the Subconscious Guard (Frank or Dave)

As usual, our BPC labmates delivered as well.

Minions, GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein) pigs, Magic School Bus, Scooby Doo, Brown Labs, Looney Toons, Rock-paper-scissors

Mini Golf: The Beginning

Looking back through our old posts, it became apparent that we never posted about the beginning of TORL’s annual mini golf tradition. Though there are now few still around who remember this far back, we do remember that Matt won (of course). Paul lost and was forced to eat some awful concoction that no one remembers at this point. We all blocked it from our memory.

And thus a TORL tradition was born! 

Even the guy who made the suspicious treat was doubtful, but Paul was a good sport about it.

Thanks, but we’ll pass

TORL 1.0

Spring and Summer Undergrad Research Symposia

In April (yes, we’re a bit behind) Sam presented her research looking at the mechanical properties of equine SDFT at the spring Undergraduate Research Symposium. 

Then, at the summer UGRS, Osa and X presented the projects that they worked on over the summer with Melika and Margaret, respectively. 

We’re so proud of all of you! 

SB3C Annual Conference

TORL was well-represented at this summer’s SB3C (Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering, and Biotransport Conference). Jacob, Ricky, and Melika all had talks about their research, and Sam was selected as a finalist for her paper.

Plus, we saw several TORL alum – both Zack and Stephanie Cone were there (though we sadly did not get a picture with Stephanie). 

Mini Golf: 2024 Edition

The day that the world has been waiting for finally came. Matt finally lost at mini golf!!

It seemed like any other game that would end with Matt winning. Turns out, halfway through he was already behind, but because he was keeping the score he didn’t mention it. The rest of us went on playing as if it was a mini golf competition like any other.

But then the final scores were tallied, and Matt lost!

Matt lost to both Ricky AND Jacob! A monumental day for everyone in the lab (except Matt).

Our favorite place with snow cones closed at some point between 2019 and 2022, so there was no inventive (translation: disgusting) flavor combination for him to eat. But they did have a stockade, and Matt did wind up in the gallows.

Sure, we would have rather him have to eat something gross, but we’ll take what we can get.

Matt Invited to Serve on NIH Review Panel

Matt was recently invited to serve a four-year term on an NIH grant review panel. Specifically, he will be assisting with the initial/integrated review group for the Skeletal Biology Structure and Regeneration Study Section (SBSR), and the Musculoskeletal, Oral and Skin Sciences Integrated Review Group (MOSS).

He was nominated for his “demonstrated competence and achievement in his scientific discipline as evidenced by the quality of his research accomplishments, publications in scientific journals, and other significant scientific activities, achievements, and honors.”

We’re all so proud!

New Project Funding

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:

Jacob wins BME Grad Student Service Award

Jacob was recently recognized with a BME Graduate Student Service Award. We know he’s awesome, but it’s always nice when others realize it!

Jacob Thompson has contributed to service broadly at NC State. He serves as the Associate Member Board President of the Comparative Medicine Institute. In this role, he represents students at the CMI Executive Committee meetings. In 2022, he also organized the Catalyze Entrepreneurship Competition. This is an event designed to provide seed funding to enable commercialization of university research. He is also the Budget Coordinator within the Scientific Research & Education Network (SciREN), which links university labs to K-12 educators.