Transformative Thinking Begins Here

The Biodynamics Lab focuses on understanding and quantifying the complex movements of both the shoulder and spine to explore the relationships between dynamic joint function and joint disease, injury, age and treatment to improve diagnosis and care of orthopedic conditions. They engage computer models with the joint motion to understand how injury and surgery can affect loads on cartilage, ligaments and intervertebral discs, and how those changes in load may be related to the development of osteoarthritis and intervertebral disc degeneration.

The Foot and Ankle Injury Research Group (FAIR) is a multidisciplinary team focused on the study of foot and ankle injuries, spanning the basic science and translational research domains, with extensive experience across sports-related and degenerative conditions. Hogan, founding director of FAIR, is a former National Institutes of Health (NIH)-T32 research fellow with experience in musculoskeletal regenerative engineering, clinical outcomes and performance assessment. Cain’s research interests cross the spectrum of foot and ankle disorders, with expertise in wound care and diabetic bone healing.

Alexander and his team are developing translational technologies to combat degenerative diseases of the spine, including microphysiological bioreactor systems to study the role of aging and injury degenerative disc and disease and animal models to understand the pathogenesis of ligamentum flavum hypertrophy and test novel small-molecule therapeutics and genetic reporter systems to monitor skeletal tissue health and disease noninvasively.

Bean’s translational basic science research combines novel biological therapies with rehabilitation strategies to enhance musculoskeletal tissue repair. She is particularly interested in understanding how biological characteristics, such as age and sex, influence disease development and the efficacy of treatment. Bean’s most recent work has focused on identifying sex- and age-dependent mechanisms of cartilage degeneration as well as the potential of neuromuscular electrical stimulation to rejuvenate extracellular vesicles to promote skeletal muscle healing in aged mice.

The Pittsburgh Orthopaedic Spine Research (POSR) is a multicenter study group that includes medical students, research fellows, clinical fellows and research staff. Spitnale and his team focus on clinical spine surgery and outcomes. POSR’s publications have won national and international society awards.

Fowler’s main research interest has been the use of musculoskeletal ultrasound for the diagnosis of peripheral nerve compression. Fowler has been a site director for two National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded clinical trials, one randomizing patients with distal radius fractures to different surgical treatment options and another randomizing patients with cubital tunnel syndrome to different surgical treatment options. He is coprincipal investigator on an NIH R21 with William Anderst, studying kinematics in patients who have undergone thumb carpometacarpal (CMC) arthroplasty.