What's New
Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Gullbrand and Coauthors on European Cells and Materials Publication
April 23, 2024
Congratulations to Dr. Gullbrand and coauthors on their publication in European Cells and Materials. The study, entitled "Intervertebral Disc Degeneration Instigates Vertebral Endplate Remodeling and Facet Joint Pathology in a Large Animal Model," characterizes the degenerative changes that occur across all substructures of the spine following induction of intervertebral disc degeneration in an initially healthy spine using chondroitinase ABC.
Columbia University Invites Dr. Gullbrand to Speak
March 05, 2024
Dr. Gullbrand gave a seminar today entitled "Disc-Facet and Disc-Endplate Crosstalk During Spinal Degeneration and Repair" as part of Columbia University's Orthopaedic Surgery Seminars in Musculoskeletal Research series.
Congratulations to Emily Sharp on Receiving ORS Spine Section Poster Award
February 06, 2024
Congratulations to all members of the Gullbrand Lab on their presentations at the Orthopaedic Research Society's 2024 Conference in Long Beach, California! Notably, PhD student Emily Sharp received the ORS Spine Section Poster Award for her outstanding project "A 'Clickable' Hydrogel for Annulus Fibrosis Repair After Intervertebral Disc Herniation." Dr. Sarah Gullbrand also presented during the Spine Biomechanics and Wearables session, highlighting our work understanding how rigid plate fixation of a tissue engineered disc replacement impacts adjacent facet degeneration over short and long durations in a large animal model.
Congratulations to Dr. Victoria Muir and Coauthors on Advanced Healthcare Materials Publication
January 05, 2024
Congratulations to Dr. Victoria Muir and coauthors on their latest publication "Injectable Radiopaque Hyaluronic Acid Granular Hydrogels for Intervertebral Disc Repair" in Advanced Healthcare Materials.
Congratulations to Dr. Ana Peredo and Coauthors for New STM Cover
November 15, 2023
Congratulations to Dr. Ana Peredo and coauthors on their latest publication "Tension-activated nanofiber patches delivering an anti-inflammatory drug improve repair in a goat intervertebral disc herniation model." Their work was also featured as the cover of Science Translational Medicine's latest issue!
Dr. Gullbrand Speaks at PSRS
November 03, 2023
Dr. Sarah Gullbrand was invited to speak at the 2023 Philadelphia Spine Research Symposium held at Drexel University. Her talk, entitled "Mechanisms of Facet Degeneration Adjacent to Engineered Discs Implanted with Plate Fixation," highlighted our lab's collaborative work characterizing and modeling facet degeneration after total disc replacement surgery. Other members of the Mauck-Gullbrand Spine Group, including Dr. Kevin Burt, Caitlin Barrett, Matthew Fainor, Brianna Orozco, and Emily Sharp presented their work during the poster session.
Congratulations to Co-First Authors Matthew Fainor and Brianna Orozco
October 30, 2023
Congratulations to co-first authors Matthew Fainor and Brianna Orozco as well as their coauthors for the newly published paper "Mechanical crosstalk between the intervertebral disc, facet joints, and vertebral endplate following acute disc injury in a rabbit model" published in JOR Spine.
DiscGenics Announces Research Collaboration with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for Tissue-Engineered Discs with Discogenic Cells
October 18, 2023
Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Gullbrand, Dr. Robert Mauck, and Dr. Harvey Smith as well as our entire team of spine researchers for earning BRAVE Funding from the VA Technology Transfer Program. This funding, awarded to our industry collaboration with DiscGenics, seeks to assess the feasibility of using DiscGenics' proprietary Discogenic Cells with the VA's whole, tissue-engineered endplate-modified disc-like angle ply structures (eDAPS).
Sarah and Matthew Present at La Salle University
October 03, 2023
Dr. Sarah Gullbrand and Research Engineer Matthew Fainor visited La Salle Unviversity to give talks as part of the university's Biology Seminar Series. Matthew shared an overview of orthopaedics and Sarah presented the lab's work developing multiple therapies to treat the spectrum of disc degeneration. This seminar was part of the 2023 McKay DEI Committee seminar circuit to recruit undergraduate students for the McKay 2024 ORS Conference Grant Program.
Thank You to Our Phenomenal Gullbrand Lab Summer Students
August 18, 2023
As the summer draws to a close, we'd like to thank our exceptional summer students, Penn URF-funded undergraduate Aira Bazaz and Drexel med student Caitlin Barrett for all their hard work! Both Cait and Aira have contributed immensely to the productivity and the culture of our lab this summer, and fortunately for the whole lab, they will both be continuing part time in the lab this fall.
Gullbrand Lab Receives Penn University Research Foundation Grant
April 03, 2023
Congratulations to Dr. Gullbrand for earning funding from the University of Pennsylvania's University Research Foundation. The Research Foundation Grant is designed to "help faculty perform novel, pioneering research to determine project feasibility and develop preliminary data to support extramural grant applications." The Gullbrand Lab will be using this funding over the next year to investigate how the spine field can predict the success of cell therapies for intervertebral disc degeneration using biomarkers and a variety of imaging techniques.
Congratulations to Matthew Fainor and Coauthors
March 28, 2023
Congratulations to Matthew Fainor and coauthors for the paper "A tunable calcium phosphate coating to drive in vivo osseointegration of composite engineered tissues" published in the Cells Tissues Organs as part of their Young Investigators Award Issue!
The Gullbrand Lab Presents at ORS 2023
February 10, 2023
Congratulations to the Gullbrand Lab on their 4 podiums and 3 posters at the Orthopaedic Research Society's 2023 Conference in Dallas, Texas! Of note, Dr. Sarah Gullbrand was invited to present the lab's work on intervertebral disc-facet degenerative crosstalk alongside experts from other tissue areas in an inaugural "Cell, Tissue, and System Crosstalk in Joint Disease" panel. In the "Biomaterials - Disc and OA" session, our surgical collaborator Dr. Harvey Smith presented the thesis work of Dr. Ana Peredo describing a novel system for annular patch repair, and Dr. Gullbrand presented the thesis work of Dr. Victoria Muir describing a strategy to restore intervertebral disc height through injection of a granular hydrogel into the nucleus pulposus. Congratulations to Research Engineer Brianna Orozco on successfully giving her first invited talk and to Matthew Fainor and Janai Augustin for their engaging poster presentations covering recent biomaterial modifications to the lab's total tissue-engineered disc replacements. See everything the Gullbrand Lab presented in more detail on Twitter!
Dr. Sarah Gullbrand Presents at the VA Horizons Seminar Series
January 18, 2023
On Wednesday, Dr. Sarah Gullbrand presented on the extensive crosstalk between intervertebral disc, endplate, and facet degeneration discovered during our small and large animal model work as well as in our characterizations of human donor tissue. The presentation was part of the inaugural VA Horizons Seminar Series with the intention of uniting the diverse research division of the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center under a shared sense of intellectual community.
Brianna Wins Best Biomechanics Poster at the 2022 PCMD Symposium
November 16, 2022
Research Engineer Brianna Orozco was recognized at the 2022 Penn Center for Musculoskeletal Disorders Symposium with an award for best biomechanics poster. This award was presented to Brianna for her outstanding work characterizing "Intervertebral Disc and Facet Cross-talk in a Rabbit Puncture Model of Disc Degeneration."
Dr. Sarah Gullbrand Wins the ORS Spine Section Early Stage Investigator Award
November 10, 2022
Congrats to one of our very own! Dr. Sarah Gullbrand was awarded the Orthopaedic Research Society Spine Section Early Stage Investigator Award at this year’s Philadelphia Spine Research Symposium for her outstanding contributions to the spine field and the overall quality of her trainees.
The Mauck-Gullbrand Spine Group Presents at PSRS 2022
November 09, 2022
Members of the Mauck-Gullbrand Spine group presented to the international spine community at ORS PSRS 2022, and enjoyed reconnecting with our colleagues for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic. Our clinical collaborator, Dr. Harvey Smith, gave a podium talk highlighting the thesis work of former PhD student Dr. Ana Peredo translating the use of tension-activated annular repair patches in a goat cervical model. Other members of the group presented on structure-function relationships between the disc, endplate, and facet joints in a rabbit disc injury model (Brianna Orozco), the translation of total tissue-engineered disc replacements in a goat cervical model (Dr. Sarah Gullbrand), and the use of hydroxyapatite coating to induce discrete areas of bone formation in composite tissues (Matthew Fainor). Collaborative work developing an injectable granular hydrogel for NP repair with Dr. Victoria Muir and an annular repair patch with Zurimed were also presented by Brianna Orozco and Dr. Sarah Gullbrand, respectively.
Janai Presents at the B-Sure Fellowship Program
August 15, 2022
Congratulations to Undergraduate Research Assistant Janai Augustin on his stellar presentation at the B-Sure Fellowship Program's end of summer symposium! Run by the American Society of Biomechanics, B-Sure awards undergraduates with funding to complete a summer research experience of their choice. Janai presented his summer work developing "In-Situ Delivery of Microspheres to Promote Local Vascularization in Composite Structures."
Sonal Begins Medical School
July 28, 2022
Undergraduate Research Assistant, Sonal Mahindroo, has been a critical member of our research team for the last year and a half, and we are incredibly sad to see her go. Sonal has begun her medical school journey, pursuing an MD at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. We have all learned so much from Sonal, and we can't wait to see what the future has in store for her!
Congratulations to Dr. Sachin Gupta and Coauthors
July 11, 2022
Congratulations to Dr. Sachin Gupta and coauthors for the paper "Level dependent alterations in human facet cartilage mechanics and bone morphometry with spine degeneration" published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research!
Matthew Attends New Harvest 2022
June 09, 2022
Research Engineer Matthew Fainor attended the 2022 New Harvest Conference on Cellular Agriculture where he spent two days connecting with experts in the field looking to scale tissue engineering technology for applications in our food system.
Emory Musculoskeletal Research Center Invites Dr. Gullbrand to Speak
April 26, 2022
Dr. Gullbrand spoke about the lab's work on "Tissue Crosstalk in Intervertebral Disc Degeneration and Repair" with members of the Emory Musculoskeletal Research Center.
Gullbrand Lab Presents at ORS 2022!
February 05, 2022
Congratulations to members of the Gullbrand-Mauck Spine group on their presentations at ORS 2022! Dr. Sarah E. Gullbrand, Ana P. Peredo, Lance Murphy, and Matthew Fainor presented five projects investigating the osteogenic effects of novel biomaterials, the mediation of neuroinflammatory molecules in intervertebral disc injury, the degenerative cross-talk between intervertebral discs and facets, and the translational impact of annular repair and replacement disc devices as tested in goat models.
Dr. Sarah Gullbrand Receives JOR Spine Early Career Award
January 14, 2022
Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Gullbrand for receiving the 2022 JOR Spine Early Career Award! This award recognizes the ‘rising stars’ of the spine field and highlights their outstanding work published in the JOR Spine.
Penn Medicine Blog Features Sonal Mahindroo and Dr. Sarah Gullbrand
September 02, 2021
Julie Wood, from Penn Medicine's Department of Communication, covers Gullbrand lab member Sonal Mahindroo's journey into research at Penn. As an energetic undergraduate student at Saint Bonaventure University, Sonal took part in the McKay Orthopaedic Research Lab's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion conference grant program which led to her summer research with Dr. Gullbrand. Hear Sonal's story from orthopaedic patient to orthopaedic researcher on the Penn Medicine news blog.
Congratulations to Dr. Beth Ashinsky and Coauthors
March 24, 2021
Congratulations to Dr. Beth Ashinsky and coauthors for the paper "Intervertebral Disc Degeneration and Regeneration: A Motion Segment Perspective" published in European Cells and Materials!
Dr. Sarah Gullbrand and Dr. Sachin Gupta present at ORS!
February 15, 2021
Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Gullbrand and Dr. Sachin Gupta on their talks at the Orthopaedic Research Society's 2021 Annual Meeting. Sarah presented on "Tissue-Engineered Total Disc Replacement," while Sachin spoke about his work on "Alterations in Facet Joint Biomechanics with Intervertebral Disc Degeneration."
The Gullbrand Lab Joins McKay Orthopaedic Research Laboratory
September 01, 2020
Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Gullbrand on her appointment as Research Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery!