$4 Million for Penn to Continue Musculoskeletal Disorders Research |
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July 12, 2016, Volume 63, No. 01 |
The Penn Center for Musculoskeletal Disorders in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania was awarded a five-year, $4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue its research on musculoskeletal injury and repair.
The Center conducts investigations in many areas of musculoskeletal biology and medicine: bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, cartilage and discs. The funding will support research aimed at improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of conditions such as osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, low back pain and rotator cuff tears.
Penn is one of only five institutions nationally to receive funding for a Musculoskeletal Center and is already the longest running of these Centers nationally. The Penn Center began its NIH funding in 2006.
According to the NIH review panel, the Center features “a strong leadership team and well-organized administrative structure; state-of-the-art technologies and an exceptional education and enrichment program. Furthermore, the reviewers consider the overall environment and the institutional commitment to be outstanding.” Additionally, they cite the “high level of success in operation and productivity of the existing center over the past ten years.” They concluded that “this is an exceptional application with high impact to the field of musculoskeletal research.”
“We are grateful to the NIH and the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases Special Emphasis Panel for this important funding,” said Louis J. Soslowsky, the Fairhill Professor in the department of orthopaedic surgery and founding director of Penn’s Center. “Whether through injury, work, sports or intrinsic bodily features, millions of Americans are affected by musculoskeletal disorders. The resulting pain and reduction in quality of life affect families, friends and co-workers, as well as the sufferers themselves. These trends will grow as the baby-boom generation ages and people live longer with chronic conditions. The Center brings together Penn’s globally recognized experts to expand our research and understanding of these debilitating afflictions.”
Penn’s Musculoskeletal Center will provide funds for three cores of musculoskeletal research:
• Micro-computed Tomography Imaging Core, which offers a wide range of imaging approaches to evaluate musculoskeletal tissue injury and repair. (Micro-CT is akin to 3-D x-ray imaging on a small scale with extremely increased resolution.)
• Biomechanics Core, which develops and provides a large array of biomechanical approaches to evaluate musculoskeletal tissue injury and repair.
• Histology Core, which uses and develops a wide range of approaches for the microscopic study of the structure, composition and function of tissues and bones.
In addition to Dr. Soslowsky, other investigators participating in the grant include Maurizio Pacifici, Felix Wehrli, X. Sherry Liu, Robert L Mauck and Robert Pignolo. The Center has 128 faculty members, 112 from five Penn schools and 16 from local institutions.
“This new funding will allow the rich collaborations that have been occurring at the Center over its ten-year history to expand and flourish,” Dr. Soslowsky said. “We will continue to work diligently on behalf of the many millions of people worldwide with musculoskeletal disorders.”
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