After a great time in Philadelphia the next stop for the fellows was a short flight away in Boston. Here they were hosted by Professor Sandra Shefelbine at Northeastern University. Prof Shefelbine had organised a fascinating programme of seminars and lab visits for the fellows’ two day visit.
First, following lunch on arrival, the fellows visited the motion capture laboratory and were shown demonstrations of the work being carried out by Dr Joshua Stefanik’s group delivered by the lab manager Dr Michael Nguyen and post-doctoral fellow Dr Chun-Hao Huang. Tom jumped at the opportunity to volunteer for an ultrasound scan by PhD student Corey Lanois. His research is looking at understanding the long-term impacts of athletic injuries on health and quality of life.
The tour concluded with a demonstration of Dr Seungmoon Song’s new lab (NeuMove) and research vision looking to bridge biomechanics, neuroscience, robotics and machine learning to study and improve human movement. The work focuses on developing human control models in physically and physiologically plausible simulations to study human physiology, test rehabilitation treatment and to control robotic systems.
The fellows then were introduced to Professor Jeffrey Ruberti, a bioengineer and CEO of Brilliant Strings. Professor Jeffrey’s presented on his work manipulating collagen assembly for a range of clinical treatments such as rotator cuff repair and tissue healing uses and following the presentation there was an interesting discussion about the benefits and challenges in running a spin-out company.
Next, Assistant Professor Ambika Bajpayee gave a highly interactive presentation about her work in cartilage drug delivery and the mechanisms of cartilage damage and healing after trauma. Simon and Tom were interested discussing the optimal surgical approach to managing the knee after trauma to avoid secondary injury, whilst Nidal and Nisreen were interested in the biological basis of harm to the cells and the ongoing research aimed at protecting against this, and David and Irene were interested in the mechanics of the common injury patterns and interplay between these and the biological response.
Following these talks, there was an opportunity to network with the wider lab team members before the fellows presented their own research to the University groups. The day ended with an excellent seafood dinner, hosted by Prof Shefelbine, along with retired clinicians Dr Fred Shapiro and Dr Michael Millis, who talked about their careers and remaining active in their academic research interests.
The next day the fellows were up early, excited by the prospect of meeting axolotls in Professor Monaghan’s limb regeneration lab. Professor James Monaghan explained the ongoing fascinating research programme in this area, which studies the axolotls’ phenomenal ability to regrow limbs and organs. The fellows were particularly interested in future work on the topic of the ageing axolotl and the relationship being ageing and regeneration. Following the visit to the axolotl lab, the fellows spent time viewing some stunning imaging with Dr Shapiro, from his innovative and skilful approach to microscopy of bone and developmental embryology.
In the afternoon, the fellows heard more from the research being undertaken in the labs, including presentations from PhD student Quentin Meslier on fluid flow mechanoadaptation, Vineel Kondiboying on calcium signalling, and Soha Ben Tahar investigating the Turing pattern in joint formation. There was also time for an inspiring discussion with Prof Shefelbine about the rewards and challenges that come with leading and funding a lab with research across such diverse themes and methodology. Following another very productive day, the fellows made the most of their last afternoon and night in Boston before packing ready for a train to New York and the Hospital for Special Surgery the following morning.
On arrival at the hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York, the fellows were greeted by Alexander Buly, the Service co-ordinator at HSS who kindly welcomed them to the hospital and sorted them out with name badges for the visit. They were introduced to Briana Bloom, who had kindly organised the entire program for our visit. On arrival, they were given a stash bag, which contained some information documents about HSS, a coffee mug, some candy and a set of scrubs – the fellows were so excited about this little present!
On the first day, each fellow was assigned into separate Operating Rooms (ORs) to observe surgery. In the afternoon they rotated to ensure that all the fellows could get a chance to see different surgeries. As a group, they visited the ORs of Dr Jason Blevins, Dr. Jonathan Vigdorchik, Dr. Steven Haas, Dr. Edwin Su and Dr. Peter Sulco. They were also meant to observe cases by Dr. Elizabeth Gausden, however, sadly due to asymptomatic covid diagnoses, many of her cases were cancelled that day. The cases that they did manage to observe were all hip and knee replacements, which was all fascinating interesting, but most excitingly for the fellows, they saw a range of new robotic assisted surgical procedures including the Mako robot, the Cori robot (Smith and Nephew) and the ROSA robot, which was an absolute treat.
For dinner Briana booked a table at Campagnola on 1st Avenue NY, where they were joined by Dr. Tim Wright, Dr. Jonathan Vigdorchik, Dr. Steven Haas, Dr. Elizabeth Gausden, Dr. Jose A. Rodriguez and Dr. Fernando Quevedo González. The meal was an absolute treat with shared platters for starters, mains and dessert and a healthy serving of drinks to celebrate the fellows visiting HSS– which the fellows deeply appreciated. To accompany the dinner, rich conversations were had at either end of the table.
The following day, the fellows woke bright and early to meet Dr. Tim Wright at the HSS Research Facilities at Dana Centre. As the program was kindly organised by Dr. Fernando Quevedo González based on the fellows research profiles, the talks were tailored to individual research interests which made for some interesting research discussions and a host of wonderful potential research collaboration ideas. To begin the talks, Dr. Wright explained a little more about the history of HSS, and the vision for the centre. Historically, many HSS staff did not take academic staff, rather, engineers would begin their careers as postdoctoral fellows, and grow overtime in the unique facility wherein engineers are embedded within the hospital setting to allow them the best opportunity to leverage those close clinical interactions. They heard from senior research staff at HSS about the work happening at HSS including Dr. Brett Steineman’s research work on the foot and ankle research, Dr. Carl Imhauser’s research on knee stability and ACL computational modelling of ankles and total knee replacements including an arthrometer, Dr. Fernando González’s research on implant longevity studies, Dr. Suzanne Maher’s research on load transfer soft joint preservation hydrogel implants. The fellows followed up these presentations with their own presentations, which were really well received and were followed by lots of stimulating questions.
Next up were lab tours, the fellows were shown the Institute for Implant Analysis where they met with Dr. Aarti Shenoy, who showed them the copious amounts of implants that had been retrieved from patients. This was fascinating to see such a well-established implant retrieval system which is the largest of any seen by the fellows before, and which hold endless potential to study anything related to implants in patients including important research interests like implant longevity and wear. They then moved on to Dr. Joe Lipman’s Patient Specific Implant design lab where Dr. Ritvik Sarkar demonstrated his working pipeline of patient specific modelling including MIMICS, 3D printing and manufacturing. They were then shown around to Dr. Kate Meyers lab where we saw some incredible robotic manipulators for joint related studies.
They also were taken to meet Mr. Justin Dufresne, the director of the Simulation Learning and Training Centre, who gave them an energetic and passionate tour of his lab (equipped to efficiently run training sessions on cadavers for orthopaedic surgeons, fellows, surgical techs and research staff). Justin also vividly explained his vision to educate and empower young researchers and clinical professionals, to make them the best versions of themselves so that they can be the best at their individual roles. They were so inspired by Justin’s energy that our two clinical fellows, Tom and Simon, are seriously considering applying for their clinical fellowships at HSS. After this visit, they made our way to Lima-HSS ProMade Point of Care centre, where Federico Leandrin, Product Development manager, showed them around the impressive registered manufacturing facilities using 3D metal printing and CNC machines to create custom implants for patients.
After a mindblowing day filled with lots of talks and tours, the day ended with more OR visits, this time the fellows were paired up and welcomed into the OR to observe Dr. David Mayman, Dr. Alejandro Gonzalez Della Valle, Dr. Alexander McLawhorn and Dr. Jose Rodriguez operate. After a long day, they needed some respite to reflect on the wonderfully inspiring research, so the fellows made their way to a different theatre, this time to watch Hamilton in New York City! What a sweet ending to an incredible visit!
British Orthopaedic Research Society 