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Research News

Tue, 03/26/2013
Musculoskeletal Systems Biology Lab awarded grant: "Biophysical Control of Bone Regeneration"

zebrafish tailRon Kwon, PhD, has been awarded a New Faculty Research Fund Grant from the UW Department of Orthopaedics entitled "Biophysical Control of Bone Regeneration". Dr. Kwon and his lab are exploring the role of biophysical stimuli in controlling regenerative processes.

"The figure on the right shows a zebrafish tail fin prior to ("A"), immediately following ("B"), and 14 days post amputation ("C"). In this project, we seek to assess the ability to use biophysical stimuli to control regeneration in the zebrafish fin."

Mon, 03/25/2013
Dr. Warme presented research from the UW Shoulder and Elbow team at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting

Winston Warme, MD

Dr. Winston Warme presented research from from the UW Shoulder and Elbow team at the 2013 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Meeting in Chicago this month. The presentation was entitled "Prognostic factors for bacterial cultures positive with Propionibacterium acnes and Other Organisms in 193 Cases of Shoulder Arthroplasty Revised for Stiffness, Pain, or Loosening".  PubMed abstract.

Wed, 03/13/2013
Dr. Vincent Mosca presenting at the AAOS Annual Meeting on "Pes planovalgus: from infancy to adolescence"

Vincent Mosca, MD

Dr. Vinca Mosca will be presenting "Pes planovalgus: from infancy to adolescence" at the 2013 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Meeting in Chicago this month.

Dr. Mosca will review all aspects of treatment of painful pes planovalgus feet, from idiopathic pathology in children, through neuromuscular deformity to adult pathology using a case based approach. Review current concepts with regards to surgical indications, operative techniques and pearls and pitfalls in each treatment group. View the presentation handout here.

Thu, 03/07/2013
Faculty Presentations at the 2013 Orthopaedic Research Society

The following faculty members made presentations at the recent 2013 Orthopaedic Research Society in San Antonio, TX.

Peter Cavanagh, PhD and Paul Manner, MD, A System for Remote Monitoring and Activity Recognition after Knee Arthroplasty. Read more...

Liu Yang, PhD and Howard Chansky, MD, ESET histone methyltransferase is essential to the control of chondrocyte hypertrophy and epiphyseal plate. Read more...
ESET protein
ESET histone methyltransferase is essential to the control of chondrocyte hypertrophy and epiphyseal plate, figure a

Albert Gee, MD, Biomechanical Effects of Meniscal Allograft Fixation: A Physiological Model. ...

Wed, 03/06/2013
Faculty Research Presentations at Professional Meetings This Spring

The research work of our faculty will be well represented at the following professional meetings this spring.

Seth Leopold, MDSeth Leopold, MD, Professor, the Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons meeting in Istanbul, Turkey: "USE OF THE UNLOADER BRACE FOR THE TREATMENT OF KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS".

Paul Manner, MD
Paul Manner, MD, Associate Professor, the Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons meeting in Istanbul, Turkey: "A SYSTEM FOR REMOTE MONITORING AND ACTIVITY RECOGNITION AFTER KNEE ARTHROPLASTY".

...

Mon, 02/25/2013
Research faculty Ronald Kwon, PhD publishes new textbook on Cell Mechanics and Mechanobiology

 

Faculty researcher Dr. Ronald Kwon, PhD publishes a new textbook titled: Introduction to Cell Mechanics and Mechanobiology.  This was a project Dr. Kwon started almost 5 years ago while teaching a course on cell mechanics at Stanford University.  Below is an excerpt from a post in Dr. Kwon’s research blog:

 …The impe­tus for the book started from a course on cell mechan­ics that myself, Chris Jacobs, and Ellen Kuhl taught at Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity. While teach­ing the course, we real­ized that there was a need for a self-contained text that could teach cell mechan­ics to stu­dents of diverse aca­d­e­mic back­grounds, both in terms of level (senior under­grad­u­ate to grad­u­ate stu­dents) and dis­ci­plines (biol­ogy, var­i­ous dis­ci­plines of engi­neer­ing, physics, etc.).

 Our solu­tion was to write a book with the goal of using cell mechan­ics and mechanobi­ol­ogy as a sub­...

Wed, 01/09/2013
CoRE Lab Bioengeering Student is Awarded a Mary Gates Research Scholarship Award

 

In December 2012, Ian Donaldson, an undergraduate researcher working in the CoRE lab under the supervision of Dr. Peter Cavanagh, was awarded a Mary Gates Research Scholarship Award.  This is Ian’s second year in the CoRE lab and is now a senior majoring in Bio Engineering. 

 According to the Mary Gates Endowment website, the Mary Gates Research Scholarships “are competitive scholarships intended to enhance the educational experiences of undergraduate students at the University of Washington while they are engaged in research guided by faculty.”  Those who are awarded the scholarship are granted $4,000 disbursed over a span of 2 quarters.  Ian, along with other scholarship winners, will be required to present their research at the Undergraduate Research Program’s annual...

Mon, 12/10/2012
Collagen Lab Presents Poster in San Diego

 

In November, the Collagen Biology and Genetic Disorders Lab traveled to San Diego, CA to present a poster at the 1st Annual Joint Meeting of the American Society for Matrix Biology and the Society for Glycobiology.  The conference provided the opportunity for medical professionals and researchers involved in disciplines related to matrix biology and glycobiology to discuss current issues and recent discoveries. 

The Collagen lab presented a poster titled: “Evidence for an effect of the morphogen retinoic acid through stimulated MMP9 expression on the turnover of collagen type IX by cultured chondrocytes.” In the world of cartilage tissue engineering, understanding how different collagen types come together to form a cartilage matrix is fundamental and important.  One hypothesis remains that removing Type IX collagen from the surface of growing Type II collagen allows fibrils to grow laterally...

Featured Articles

Bone Collagen: New Clues to Its Mineralization Mechanism from Recessive Osteogenesis Imperfecta.

Bone Collagen: New Clues to Its Mineralization Mechanism from Recessive Osteogenesis Imperfecta. Eyre DR, Weis MA. Calcif Tissue Int. 2013 Mar 19. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 23508630

 

In this review article, Dr. David Eyre and Mary Ann Weis (part of the Collagen Biology and Genetic Disorders Lab) discuss the mechanism behind bone collagen mineralization by examining recent findings about the genetic disorder osteogensis imperfecta.

Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) is a congenital bone disorder that is commonly known as “brittle bone disease.”  OI causes bones to fracture easily;...

Comparison of Dry-Land Training Programs Between Age Groups of Swimmers

Comparison of Dry-Land Training Programs Between Age Groups of Swimmers
Krabak BJ, Hancock KJ, Drake S. PM R. 2013 Jan 29. doi:pii: S1934-1482(12)01710-8. 10.1016/j.pmrj.2012.11.003. PMID: 23375633

 

 

Faculty member Dr. Brian J. Krabak led a study that describes the use of dry-land training in swimmer athletes.  Traditionally, dry-land training has been used to enhance performance in the water and prevent injuries.  However, there is conflicting data that shows that these benefits actually exist.  By first establishing a description of the current use of dry land training by swim coaches, this can help establish future studies that examine the proposed benefits of this type of training.

 

Click...

Mucopolysaccharide disorders in orthopaedic surgery.

White KK, Sousa T., J Am Acad Orthop Surg. 2013 Jan;21(1):12-22. doi: 10.5435/JAAOS-21-01-12. PMID: 23281467

 UW Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine faculty, Klane White, and resident, Ted Sousa, published a review article about a rare family of genetic disorders, mucopolysaccharidoses (MPSs).  There are seven distinct types of MPS that show similar clinical symptoms but range in severity.  MPSs are disorders characterized by the cell’s inability to degrade glycoaminoglycans (GAGs), long chains of sugar molecules that are the normal byproducts of cells.  This inability is attributed to the lack of or malfunction of lysosomal enzymes that normally serve to break these byproducts down.  Since the body is no longer able to break down GAGs, these accumulate in cells, disrupt normal cellular function and have a system wide effect on mental development, physical appearance and organ function. 

 According to the authors, skeletal...

Baumann angle and radial-ulnar overlap: a radiographic study to control for the angle of the x-ray beam

Baumann angle and radial-ulnar overlap: a radiographic study to control for the angle of the x-ray beam.
J. Lee Pace, MD, Brett Wiater, MD, Gregory Schmale, MD, Thomas Jinguji, MD, Viviana Bompadre, PhD, and Walter Krengel III, MD.  Department of Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, Seattle Children’s Hospital, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. J Pediatr Orthop. 2012 Jul-Aug;32(5):467-72. PMID: 22706461

 

UW Orthopaedic Faculty at Seattle Children’s Hospital wanted to investigate if there was any “surrogate” measure that could control for the angle of x-ray beams when examining Baumann’s angle.  Baumann’s angle (BA) is the most common radiographic measurement used to assess the alignment of the distal humerus...

Type III collagen, a fibril network modifier in articular cartilage
Type III collagen, a fibril network modifier in articular cartilage Wu JJ, Weis MA, Kim LS, Eyre DR J Biol Chem. 2010 Jun 11;285(24):18537-4 

In a recent article in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, UW Orthopaedics researchers David Eyre and colleagues Maryann Weiss, Lannie Kim, and James Wu describe the role of type III collagen. This protein is synthesized in mature articular cartilage, as a covalent modifier that may add cohesion to a weakened, existing collagen type II fibril network as part of a chondrocyte healing response to matrix damage. In the articular cartilages of adult joints, type III collagen makes an appearance in varying amounts superimposed on the original collagen fibril network. In a study to understand better the structural role of type III collagen in cartilage, the researchers found that type III collagen molecules with unprocessed N-...

Comparison of one and two-stage revision of total hip arthroplasty complicated by infection
Comparison of one and two-stage revision of total hip arthroplasty complicated by infection: a markov expected-utility decision analysis. Wolf CF, Gu NY, Doctor JN, Manner PA, Leopold SS. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2011 Apr;93(7):631-9. PMID: 21471416

Department of Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine Faculty members Seth Leopold and Paul Manner together used Markov modeling to study approaches to revision of total hip arthroplasty. Two-stage revisions complicated by chronic infection result in reinfection rates that are lower than those following single-stage revisions but may also result in increased surgical morbidity. Using a decision analysis, they compared single-stage and two-stage revisions to determine which treatment modality resulted in greater quality-adjusted life years (QALYs).

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Risk factors for medical complication after lumbar spine surgery: A multivariate analysis of 767 patients
Risk Factors for Medical Complication After Lumbar Spine Surgery: A Multivariate Analysis of 767 Patients. Lee, Michael J. MD; Hacquebord, Jacques MD; Varshney, 
Anuj MD; Cizik, Amy M. MPH; Bransford, Richard J. MD; Bellabarba, Carlo MD; Konodi, Mark A. MS; Chapman, Jens MD 
PMID:22046614 

Spine Surgery graphMany prior studies of complications during spine surgery have been...