Category: Funding

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:

New project funding!

Our group was recently awarded a 5-year NIH grant titled “Using 3D Nonwovens Fabrication to Engineer Region-Specific Extracellular Matrix Structure and Bioactivity of the Knee Meniscus”. The project seeks to integrate current tissue engineering and regenerative medicine approaches to create a novel implantable, biomimetic scaffold to treat meniscal tears. More specifically, we hope to merge 3D printing, which can create scaffolds that replicate physiologic size and patient-specific geometry but have fibers several orders of magnitude larger than native tissue, and nonwoven textiles that allow for the fabrication of fibers on the scale of native collagen fibrils but cannot be used to make complex anatomical 3D geometries. In addition to the nonwoven fibers, we will also incorporate meniscus-specific extracellular matrix to increase bioactivity. We hope to capitalize on attributes of both approaches to overcome current limitations and create a new 3D nonwoven scaffold fabrication that will provide a better option for treating meniscal tears.

Along with Matt, the other PIs are Dr. Rohan Shirwaiker (Industrial & Systems Engineering) and Amy McNulty (Duke’s Department of Orthpaedic Surgery). Co-Investigators are Dr. Lauren Schnabel (Department of Clinical Sciences), Dr. Behnam Pourdeyhimi (College of Textiles / The Nonwovens Institute), Dr. Emily Griffith (Department of Statistics), and Dr. Jeff Spang (UNC Orthopaedics). The total of the award is $2.6 million spread across five years.

You can read more about the project here.

Zack Awarded NSF Fellowship

Zack Davis, former TORL undergrad and current graduate student, was awarded a very prestigious NIH Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP). We’re so proud of him! Due to social distancing, we had to celebrate remotely.

First photo: Waiting for him to join the Zoom Meeting

Second photo: Springing into action to congratulate him!  (Zack is bottom right in this one)

2019-2020 Abrams Scholars

Congratulations to AJ, Joella, and Aituaje, who were both selected as Abrams scholars for the 2019-2020 academic year.

AJ will be continuing on his independent research project:

Comparison of grafts for adolescent ACL reconstruction: Adolescent anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries are becoming more common in recent years due to an increase in adolescents’ sports participation. The type of ACL reconstruction surgery that is appropriate for each injury depends on multiple variables, including age, severity of damage, and the surgeon’s preference. One common treatment approach involves removing the damaged ACL and replacing it with a surgical graft. Comparison studies have been conducted for adult populations receiving surgical grafts, however there is a lack of available data adolescent populations. This project involves developing a testing protocol to measure viscoelastic properties of grafts in a physiological environment. Once a protocol has been established, a graft comparison study using a growing porcine model will be conducted. The study will test the mechanical differences between various grafts at different ages (for example, hamstring tendons, bone-patella tendon-bone, etc.) to better choose which graft may be most appropriate in the adolescent population.

Aituaje will continue working with Zack on a project that she began over the summer:

Effect of material and 3D printing parameters on replicating the structure and mechanical properties of the meniscus: The meniscus is a load-bearing tissue in the knee with complex geometry. Treatment of injuries to the meniscus often lack patient-specific size matching. Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) is a 3D printing technique that melts a thermoplastic then extrudes it in the form of small fibers in a layer by layer manner. This allows us to create complex shapes controlled by computer-guided code. This project aims to apply FDM as a tool to replicate patient-specific geometries, assessed from MRI scans, while matching the meniscus’s mechanical properties by varying materials and printing parameters. The student will perform tensile and compressive testing on 3D printed samples to analyze their mechanical properties.

And Joella will continue working with Danielle:

Characterizing the microstructure of the ACL throughout skeletal growth: 
The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) connects the femur to the tibia, and functions as a major stabilizer in the knee joint. Injury and surgical reconstruction of the ACL in pediatric patients are rapidly increasing, but these surgeries result in 4-6 times higher secondary injury rates compared to these surgeries in adults. Further, females are at a much higher risk of ACL tear than males during adolescence but not childhood or adulthood. The ligament is largely hypocellular and is composed mainly of aligned collagen, but little data is available regarding its specific microstructure throughout growth. This project will aim to histologically examine the microstructural properties of the ACL in males and females throughout skeletal growth. Results from this project will help us understand what might contribute to the disparity in injury rates between males and females throughout growth. Further, this data can be applied to help inform the development of sex- and age-specific tissue engineered ligaments.

About the Abrams Scholars Program:

Abrams Scholars are outstanding BME undergraduate students who are selected to receive a stipend to conduct hands-on laboratory research projects. These projects are conceived and designed by the students with the guidance of a faculty mentor. The Abrams Scholar program honors C. Frank Abrams, Jr., a BME and BAE emeritus faculty member. Dr. Abrams led the development of the first courses in Biomedical Engineering at NC State and was instrumental in the founding of NC State’s BME Department, the creation of the joint UNC-CH/NC State graduate program, and ultimately the launch of the UNC-CH/NC State Joint BME Department. He was the Joint Department’s first senior design instructor as well as the first Director of Graduate Studies.

AJ Gets an Abrams Scholar Award

Congratulations to AJ, who was awarded an Abrams Scholar Award from the biomedical engineering department.

 

About the Abrams Scholars Program:

Abrams Scholars are outstanding BME undergraduate students who are selected to receive a stipend to conduct hands-on laboratory research projects. These projects are conceived and designed by the students with the guidance of a faculty mentor. The Abrams Scholar program honors C. Frank Abrams, Jr., a BME and BAE emeritus faculty member. Dr. Abrams led the development of the first courses in Biomedical Engineering at NC State and was instrumental in the founding of NC State’s BME Department, the creation of the joint UNC-CH/NC State graduate program, and ultimately the launch of the UNC-CH/NC State Joint BME Department. He was the Joint Department’s first senior design instructor as well as the first Director of Graduate Studies.

AJ & Emily Receive OUR Grants

Congratulations to AJ and Emily, who both received awards from the Office for Undergraduate Research (OUR).

 

AJ’s proposal, titled “Co-Culture of Muscle and Tendon Cells to Model the Myotendinous Junction”, provides $1000 of funding to the lab to buy supplies for the project.

 

Emily’s grant provides funding for her to travel to a conference, in this case the Biomedical Engineering Society’s annual conference, being held in October in Atlanta. Her project is “Age-Dependent Changes In The Orientation And Shape Of The Anterior Cruciate Ligament Bundles”.

 

Congratulations to both of you!

We got an R01 Grant!

Our recent R01 grant application was funded by the NIH! The proposal, titled “Sex- and Age-Dependent ACL Function in the Growing Knee Joint” has been funded for $1.6 million dollars from April 2018 through March of 2023.  You can see more about the award here, or scroll down to see and abstract and the public health relevance of our research.

 

Per the NIH, “The Research Project Grant (R01) is the original and historically oldest grant mechanism used by NIH. The R01 provides support for health-related research and development based on the mission of the NIH”.

 

Abstract Text:
Recent data indicates that the fastest rising rates of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries of the knee are reported in children and adolescents with significant growth remaining. In the skeletally immature patient population, surgical reconstruction is increasingly suggested for complete ACL tears. However, the choice of non-surgical treatment or immediate surgical reconstruction of ACL tears remains a subject of debate in young patients with significant growth remaining or in the case of partial tears involving one ACL bundle. Sex appears to be a major risk factor for ACL injury during adolescence, but not in childhood, adding another layer of complexity. For both complete and partial ACL injuries, treatment algorithms have been developed without considering the potential sex- and age-dependent function of the ACL, due to the paucity of available data. Thus, the objective of this proposal is to determine how age and sex impact ACL maturation and joint function during skeletal growth and to assess if this knowledge can be applied to improve treatment after ACL injury. Aim 1 will determine how sex impacts the maturation of the ACL as well as that of its individual AM and PL bundles during skeletal growth. Aim 2 will determine how age and sex impact the immediate loading of secondary tissues in-vitro and the remodeling response of the joint in-vivo following loss of function of the AM bundle, PL bundle, or the entire ACL. Aim 3 will determine how replacement graft type and placement should vary to restore age- and sex-specific ACL and joint function. Successful completion of these aims will provide a basic science foundation for the development of age- and sex-specific algorithms for the treatment of ACL injuries.

Public Health Relevance Statement:
With increasing activity and participation in organized sports within children and adolescents, injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) of the knee joint are rising dramatically, and appropriate age- and sex- dependent treatment algorithms are still unclear. The goal of this proposal is to determine how age and sex impact ACL maturation and joint function during skeletal growth and to assess if this knowledge can be applied to improve treatment after ACL injury. Such information will be critical to guide sex- and age-specific treatment strategies for children or adolescents with ACL injuries and significant remaining growth, and the knowledge obtained can be extended to guide new surgical and/or non-operative treatment.

AJ wins Abrams Scholar Award

AJ was granted an Abrams Scholar Award to work on the project “Direct wire melt electrospinning for musculoskeletal soft tissue engineering”. He will be working with Zack and Paul on the project.

 

About the Abrams Scholars Program:

Abrams Scholars are outstanding BME undergraduate students who are selected to receive a stipend to conduct hands-on laboratory research projects. These projects are conceived and designed by the students with the guidance of a faculty mentor. The Abrams Scholar program honors C. Frank Abrams, Jr., a BME and BAE emeritus faculty member. Dr. Abrams led the development of the first courses in Biomedical Engineering at NC State and was instrumental in the founding of NC State’s BME Department, the creation of the joint UNC-CH/NC State graduate program, and ultimatel,y the launch of the UNC-CH/NC State Joint BME Department. He was the Joint Department’s first senior design instructor as well as the first Director of Graduate Studies.

TORL Receives Pilot Funding for Musculoskeletal Simulation Research

TORL was awarded pilot project funding on musculoskeletal modeling through the National Center for Simulation in Rehabilitation Research (NCSRR).  The goal of the work is to develop and validate a new platform for modeling musculoskeletal growth and loading using a computational approach requiring joint simulation and finite element analysis.  The project also aims to develop software tools to link these computational programs.

The title of the project is “Integrated iterative musculoskeletal modeling to study growth and function” and represents an ongoing collaboration with Dr. Katherine Saul, an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at NC State.  Dr. Saul is director of the Movement Biomechanics Laboratory at NC State.  Dr. Saul and Dr. Fisher are co-PIs on the project. 

The announcement of the award can be found at the NCSRR website.

TORL a part of team awarded large-scale seed funding for 3D printing

Our lab was a member of a team awarded seed funding on 3D printing fibrous tissues through the Game-Changing Research Incentive Program (GRIP).  The title of the project is “3D Printing of Fibrous Tissue Engineered Medical Products: A New Paradigm for Tissue Biofabrication and Therapeutics” and involves collaborators in the College of Textiles, College of Engineering, and College of Veterinary Medicine at NC State as well as collaborators at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Funding of the project ($575,000 over three years) is provided by the NC State Office of Research, Innovation and Economic Development, RTI International and the Kenan Institute for Engineering, Technology and Sciences.

The full announcement of the award can be found here: https://news.ncsu.edu/2016/12/oried-announces-inaugural-grip-winners/