Welcome to McKay Orthopaedic Research Laboratory
The McKay Orthopaedic Research Laboratory is looking to hire an Assistant Professor on the Tenure Track! For more information please visit click the link.
https://www.med.upenn.edu/orl/join-us-position.html
A program in orthopaedic research at the University of Pennsylvania was established in 1960, and in 1979 the McKay Orthopaedic Research Laboratory officially opened, establishing all of the orthopaedic research laboratories in the same physical location. Currently, the McKay Lab is a thriving, multidisciplinary facility that occupies more than 22,000 square feet of space in Stemmler Hall in the Perelman School of Medicine. Our multi-faceted research programs involve the participation of more than 120 research personnel from 17 distinct laboratories. Research expenditures in McKay total more than $15,000,000 per annum, supported largely through extramural funding including grants from the National Institutes of Health, Veteran's Administration, other governmental agencies, private foundations, and industry. We are consistently ranked in the top 5 among Orthopaedic Departments nationally in terms of NIH funding. Our overall mission is to conduct high quality fundamental and translational research and to train the next generation of leaders in our field. Moreover, the McKay Lab serves as the focal point for the NIH-supported Penn Center for Musculoskeletal Disorders, a university-wide Center that provides resources and a forum for scientific exchange through annual symposia, a year-long seminar series, a pilot grant program and other activities.
McKay Laboratory News
Thank you to our summer students Alex Baranyai, Lindsay Bomba, Luv Kataria, and Lindsey Sydnor
August 20, 2026
The biggest thanks to the four wonderful students who joined us for the summer this year! We wish Lindsay Bomba, our 2026 American Society of Laboratory Animal Practitioners Fellow, and Luv Kataria, our 2026 Association of Academic Physiatrists Rehabilitation Research Experience Fellow, good luck as they return to veterinary and medical school this fall. We are so grateful you wanted to work with us this summer and are so proud of all the work you've accomplished in such a short period of time! We'd also like to thank medical student Lindsey Sydnor, who completed her first summer with us, and undergraduate researcher Alex Baranyai, who completed her second summer in the lab as part of UPenn's University Scholars Research Training Grant, for their outstanding contributions to our research! The commitment all four of you have shown to ensure everything you do is done well can not be understated, and we can't wait to see what you do next.
Gullbrand Laboratory
Congratulations to Dr. Ji-Hyung Lee!
July 31, 2026
We are thrilled to finally share our work published today in Science Advances! Sometimes the most interesting discoveries come from asking old proteins new questions. We discovered a previously unrecognized role for TRF2 in preserving muscle stem cell identity and enabling muscle regeneration-a finding that changes how we think about this classic telomere protein and opens new directions for understanding how skeletal muscle maintains its remarkable regenerative capacity. This paper would not have been possible without the outstanding perseverance and creativity of first author Ji-Hyung Lee, and the lab couldn't be prouder of what he accomplished. We are also sincerely grateful to our incredible collaborators -Jeff Dilworth, Kiran Nakka, Roger Greenberg, Patrick Seale, Lynn Megeney and all of their lab members- whose expertise made this work possible. We're excited to continue exploring this biology and to understand how these discoveries might one day translate into better regenerative strategies. We are already pursuing the next chapter of this story.
Mourkioti Laboratory
Colorado State University Invites Dr. Gullbrand to Speak
July 17, 2026
Dr. Gullbrand was invited to speak at Colorado State University's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences today where she talked about "Disc Degeneration and Repair Through the Lens of Multi-Tissue Crosstalk."
Gullbrand Laboratory