Dr. Matthew Fisher, Associate Professor in the Joint Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at NC State University and UNC Chapel Hill and TARC member, was recently awarded a 5-year, $3.2 million grant from NIH/NIAMS (National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases) for his project, Role of Hormones on Bundle-Specific ACL Function in the Growing Knee Joint.
From his lab’s website the following was shared: “This project is an R01 renewal grant that builds on our previous research that established sex- and region-specific differences in function and cross-sectional area of the ACL’s AM and PL bundles. These differences appear around early adolescence and persist throughout adolescence. Now, we will examine how sex hormones impact bundle size and function. Specifically, we will look at the effect of puberty onset on long-term ACL bundle size and function. We will also study the effect of cyclic hormone levels on short-term ACL bundle size and function throughout the normal estrous cycle and if stabilizing hormone levels reduces these changes.”
Collaborators on this project include Drs. Lauren Schnabel, Jorge Piedrahita, and Emily Griffith at NC State, along with Dr. Jeffery Spang at UNC Chapel Hill, Dr. Alon Conley at UC Davis, and Dr. Sandra Shultz at UNC Greensboro. Drs. Schnabel and Spang are also members of TARC.
Preliminary data for this project was collected with support from the UNC Thurston Arthritis Research Center.
Project Number: 2R01AR071985-06A1