Skip to main content
menu
URMC / Labs / Awad Lab / News

 

News

20202017201620152014

Close Ties with Med Center Aid Quest to Heal Traumatic Injuries

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Photo of Drs. Inzana and Awad

Jason Inzana and Dr. Hani Awad

A recent article in Hajim School of Engineering' and Applied Sciences' newsletter, The Full Spectrum, features examples of how tissue engineering research at the Biomedical Engineering Department, much of which is conducted in preclinical models to heal traumatic injuries, is bolstered by the work of BME faculty and graduate students in the laboratories of professors Awad, Benoit, and Buckley, capitalizing on close ties with the Center for Musculoskeletal Research.

As part of a consortium of research projects funded by AOTrauma, Dr. Hani Awad and his lab members are using new 3D printing technology to fabricate bone scaffolds made of biocompatible material to replace the original bone tissue lost to infection. As part of the printing process, the scaffolds can be ink-jetted with antibiotics to fight the infection and with growth factors to stimulate replacement bone growth. These therapeutics can be applied to the surface of the graft, or embedded uniformly in it, so they can be released gradually, as the graft dissolves, to ensure the infection is eradicated and to stimulate regeneration of the bone tissue.

Photo od Dr. Benoit

Dr. Danielle Benoit

Photo of Dr. Buckley

Dr. Mark Buckley

With support from a National Institutes of Health grant, Dr. Danielle Benoit's team is exploring the use of hydrogels - Jell-O-like polymers - that can be seeded with the patient's own stem cells and wrapped around the transplant. Benoit's graduate student Michael Hoffman has demonstrated that as the hydrogel dissolves, the stem cells are gradually released and promote bone healing and integration. Benoit is exploring various ways in which this can all be orchestrated to maximize graft healing and integration.

Dr. Mark Buckley, who joined biomedical engineering as an assistant professor at the start of the year, is studying heat buildup in tendons as they are stretched during various activities and the extent to which this contributes to cell death and eventual deterioration of the tendon. A key part of this research involves characterizing exactly what constitutes healthy tendon structure and function.

Read More: Close Ties with Med Center Aid Quest to Heal Traumatic Injuries

Jason Inzana Wins 2013 Alice L. Jee Award

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Jason Inzana, Ph.D. candidate in Professor Hani Awad's Musculoskeletal Tissue Engineering laboratory, has been selected as one of the recipients of the 2013 Alice L. Jee Young Investigator Award. For winning this award, Jason will have the honor of an invited presentation of a poster entitled Skeletally Immature Mice are More Susceptible than Mature Mice to the Detrimental Effects of High Fat Diet on Cancellous Bone in the Distal Femur at the 42nd International Sun Valley Workshop poster session in Sun Valley, Idaho, in August 2013.

URMC Orthopaedics Ranks No. 1 in Nation in NIH Funding

Friday, March 15, 2013

The University of Rochester Medical Center's Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation has been ranked No. 1 in the nation in National Institutes of Health funding for orthopaedic research, according to data released by the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research.

The URMC Center for Musculoskeletal Research (CMSR) received $4.86 million in peer-reviewed NIH research grants in 2012, surpassing institutions such as Washington University, Johns Hopkins and Duke University. At a time when research dollars are becoming increasingly scarce, the CMSR upped its funding by 30 percent over the previous year.

This is a testament to the caliber of URMC's orthopaedic research endeavors and our stellar class of investigators, said Edward M. Schwarz, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Musculoskeletal Research and the Burton Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedics. Our funding success is due in large part to a programmatic organizational design, a strong emphasis on collaboration across departments, and the diverse research interests of our faculty. It is clearly a case of the sum being greater than its parts.

Among the seven orthopaedic researchers that made the 2012 Blue Ridge list for top funding were Dr. Schwarz (4th) and Dr. Hani Awad (67th), both also have appointments in Biomedical Engineering.

Read More: URMC Orthopaedics Ranks No. 1 in Nation in NIH Funding

Hani Awad receives an Established Investigator grant from the MTF

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Hani Awad, Ph.D., has received a 3-year, $300,000 grant from the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation (MTF) for an Established Investigator research project entitled Teriparatide and Allograft Cartilage Derived Matrix for Regenerative Repair of Articular Cartilage. The funded preclinical study will investigate the hypothesis that parathyroid hormone (PTH) therapy can enhance repair of knee cartilage defects grafted with a novel cartilage allograft derived matrix (CDM) compared to standard surgical methods currently in clinical practice. For more information please visit the Awad Lab.

URMC Orthopaedics Research Student Wins National Video Contest

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Youssef Farhat, a BMEMD/PhD student in the Awad Lab, has won first place in the Orthopaedic Research Society Video Outreach Competition for his 3-minute video raising awareness of Orthopaedic research in a way that is enjoyable and easy to understand.

His video was the only entry from the University of Rochester. Winners were determined by vote of members of the ORS. Youssef's own research is aimed at reducing or eliminating scar tissue in hands. But in his film Who Cares About Orthopaedic Research?, Farhat explains that orthopaedic conditions like fractures, arthritis, back pain, and cancer, have an impact on nearly everyone at some point from birth to old age. He works in the Center for Musculoskeletal Research at the UR Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, and is pursuing a doctorate in biomedical engineering in the lab of Hani A. Awad, Ph.D.