Translational Orthopaedic Research Laboratory
Part of the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at NC State University and UNC-Chapel Hill
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)
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
The annual Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) conference was pretty nearby this year in Baltimore. Our department had a whopping 46 presenters this year, including two from TORL. Ricky had a poster and Margaret had a podium. Great job guys!
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
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!
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).
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 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!
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.
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.
We had a great time visiting Ms. Byrd’s 7th grade class at Wake Young Men’s Leadership Academy for SciMatch. This is our first in-person SciMatch since 2019!!
We talked about how our group is working to improve treatment options for knee injuries.
We talk briefly about what we were like in 7th grade, what we do, and why we like our jobs
Margaret led of our activities involves using photo-sensitive paper (Sun paper) to get kids thinking about how different tissues would show up on an x-ray or an MRI
We also have some 3D ‘stacking’ puzzles that we made years ago to demonstrate how we can get a 3 dimensional model from 2 dimensional images.
Jacob led them through making a customized meniscus. They used a 3D printed meniscus mold to create alginate gel ‘implants’.
Ricky showed them how we can use a mechanical tester to characterize our menisci (but really the kids just wanted to turn the handle as fast as they could and break things. We don’t blame them!)
Yay science!
BME is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2024! As such, our annual retreat was an even bigger event that normal. TORL had four undergrads present their research during the poster session.
Rachel was even awarded a BME Retreat Poster award
Obviously we had to take group photos with the human-sized BME letters.
In the second photo, we were told to pose for a funny photo and apparently several of this took to mean we should hide behind the letters.
The annual Biomaterials Day retreat was recently held at NC State. We had several lab members attend, and Sam even won an award for her research looking at the relationship between macro and micro mechanical properties of the equine superficial digital flexor tendon (SDFT). She was awarded the Most Outstanding Undergraduate Presentation award!
This year’s group costume, in honor of the 2023 movie, was Mario.
We loved seeing all of the great BPC costumes!
Four of our undergrads were recently named as Abrams Scholars.
Sofie will be working with Melika to look at the use of synthetic platelets in vitro as a novel ACL injury therapeutic treatment.
Rachel and Elizabeth are working on the ACL project to look at biochemical and histological changes to the meniscus following ACL injury.
Sam will be continuing the work she started with Zack. She will be doing a multiscale mechanical analysis of equine superficial digital flexor tendon.
We’re so proud of all of you!