Welcome to the Laboratory Research and Clinical Trials programs for the Department of Orthopaedics.
The department has many ongoing research initiatives ranging from:
- Joint replacement using robotics
- Microsurgical procedures
- Hand and wrist nerve regeneration
- Replication of telomeres
In addition to the many robust research efforts happening, the Department of Orthopaedics is also conducting a variety of clinical trials.
Laboratory research
The McKay Orthopaedic Research Laboratory embodies the principles that guide orthopaedic research: interdisciplinary effort, common-use facilities, scientific collaboration, and collegial discussion. The McKay Lab occupies more than 22,000 square feet of space in the School of Medicine, and is populated by more than 120 research personnel and 17 principal investigators.
Penn Orthopaedics research foci include:
- Allotransplantation
- Bone metabolism and cancer-associated bone diseases
- Connective tissue extracellular matrix biophysics and cell biology
- Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva and other disorders of heterotopic ossification
- Genetic and cellular regulation of osteogenesis and chondrogenesis
- Intervertebral disc and soft tissue mechanics
- Mesenchymal stem cell maintenance and differentiation
- Musculoskeletal aging and disease
- Musculoskeletal tissue engineering
- Stem cell mechanobiology
- Tendon and ligament injury and repair
Orthopaedic medicine and surgery clinical research studies
Current research studies for Penn Orthopaedics include:
- Advanced imaging techniques in the management of fracture non-unions
- Bacterial contamination of open fractures
- Cerebral oxygenation patterns in patients fixed with intramedullary nailing
- Review of the use of allograft bone in tibial plateau fractures
- mRNA expression in blunt trauma articular cartilage injuries
- Fixation strategies in proximal humeral fractures
- Traumatic hip fracture management and outcomes in patients with end-stage liver disease