Dr. Layne Freeman Finishes Her Research Year in the Gullbrand Lab
June 30, 2026
Today Dr. Layne Freeman finished her research year in the Gullbrand Lab as part of the University of Pennsylvania's Laboratory Animal Veterinary Medicine Residency Program. Layne has been the driving force leading our active Merit Grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs "Predicting the Efficacy of Therapeutic Spinal Loading for Intervertebral Disc Degeneration" as we continue to understand how prescribed exercise may prevent degeneration of the spine. We are sad that Layne must leave us to return to the clinic and finish her last year of residency, but we are grateful that she has set this project up for continued success and will continue to prepare the results for publication to share with our orthopaedic community.
Dr. Pushpak Pondugula Speaks at Penn Medicine Orthopaedic Research Day
June 18, 2026
Orthopaedic Surgery resident Dr. Pushpak Pondugula completed his research year in the Gullbrand Lab with a presentation of his work at Penn Medicine's Ortho Research Day! His presentation highlighted the work he did this year in collaboration with Dr. Jay Patel and his team at the Atlanta VA developing an injectable tissue penetrating hyaluronic acid hydrogel for the treatment of facet osteoarthritis. This work is funded by a joint site Pilot Grant through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs CReATE Motion Center.
Congratulations to Brianna Orozco on Graduating with a Master's in Bioengineering
May 22, 2026
Congratulations to Brianna Orozco on her graduation! Brianna earned a Masters of Science in Bioengineering with her thesis "Comparison of Transport Properties Between Human and Tissue-Engineered Vertebral Endplates." We are so happy Brianna is sticking around to continue her work as a vital member of our research staff.
Dr. Layne Freeman Organizes Biomedical Research Awareness Day and Dr. Sarah Gullbrand Speaks
April 16, 2026
Our veterinary surgical resident Dr. Layne Freeman organized this year's Biomedical Research Awareness Day at Penn with her fellow residents! The annual event highlights investigators across all schools at Penn whose research involves the use of animals. Specifically, BRAD is designed to highlight laboratories who best use the 3Rs approach when conducting their studies. This includes Replacement of animals with other models when appropriate, Reduction in the number of animals necessary to complete a study whenever possible, and Refinement of procedures to increase a study's impact while improving quality of life for our animals. Our very own Dr. Sarah Gullbrand presented our work using rabbits to understand why some people with low back pain benefit from physical therapy while others don't, focusing on the 3R components of these studies. Much of our work is beginning to show that providing our rabbits with more enrichment in the form structured exercise and unstructured play time may lead to both healthier spines and happier rabbits.
Gullbrand Lab Presents at ORS 2026
March 31, 2026
Congratulations to all members of the Gullbrand Lab and our collaborators on their presentations at the Orthopaedic Research Society's 2026 Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina! During the spine section meeting, Master's student Brianna Orozco and PhD candidate Emily Sharp reflected on their research mentorships and travels enabled by the ORS Spine Section Travel Award and the Dr. Peter Roughley Award, respectively. PhD students Janai Augustin and Matthew Fainor both gave their very first talks at ORS, and we are very proud of the excellent work they do! To top it off, Matthew Fainor won an ORS Spine Section award for his research presented during the poster sessions. You can find the details about all our projects on Dr. Gullbrand's LinkedIn page and on the ORS website. A big thanks to everyone who contributes to the ORS community, making it a supportive, inspiring, collaborative place to ground our work. See everyone soon!