General research questions:
While humans climbed the evolutionary ladder, a sophisticated musculoskeletal system was developed to adapt the body to universal gravity and diverse daily physical duties. Ironically, a musculoskeletal disorder represents one of the most common diseases leading to surgical intervention in modern society. The paradoxical relationship between these two facts has been stimulating our passion on pursuing the answers to the following questions:
- How does the human musculoskeletal system adapt to mechanical force as a complicated multivariable biological system?
- How can we harness the intrinsic mechano-adaption mechanisms at the body, tissue, and cell levels for better diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of musculoskeletal disease?
Soft tissue and bone Interface: one of the most sophisticated components in the human musculoskeletal system.
The musculoskeletal system sustains mechanical force through the coordinated action of both hard bone and surrounding soft tissue. A specialized cartilaginous or fibrous interface integrates the soft tissue to bone and facilitates joint motions. With a gradient in composition, structure and mechanical properties, this sophisticated interface minimizes stress concentration through two mechanically distinct materials and significantly expands the motion capacity of the human body.
On the other side, musculoskeletal disorders (e.g., neck and back pain, joint osteoarthritis) were often observed with interface deterioration or disruption as the concurrent evidence. Due to the complexity of multilayer tissue structure, fully functional recovery and healing of the damaged interface is beyond the regeneration capacity of the human body. It is generally believed that physiological mechanical loading helps to maintain the interface homeostasis, while pathological loading together with other biological stimulators (e.g., aging, smoking, hormone) may lead to interface remodeling and initiate or accelerate the progression of joint disease. However, due to the complexity of physical and biological couplings in the multilayer interface at the body, tissue, and cell levels, the intrinsic mechano-adaption mechanisms remain elusive (e.g., structure and function relationship, tissue homeostasis and remodeling mechanism, cellular mechanotransduction, etc.).
Integrating theoretical modeling, in vitro tissue and cell studies, and in vivo animal models, our goal is to pursue a multi-scale, systems-level understanding of mechano-adaption mechanisms in the soft tissue and bone interface for better diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of musculoskeletal disease.
Current research topics:
- Spinal pain
- Thumb basal joint osteoarthritis
- Osteochondral allograft cryopreservation
