Research Opportunities

The program emphasizes both basic and clinical research. A full-time staff of more than 35 research professionals, including nine PhDs, is constantly developing new cutting edge orthopedic projects. Rush is one of the best funded orthopedic departments in the country with multiple NIH grants as well as significant private funding. Collaboration with the talented research faculty enables residents to meet research requirements with high-quality translational and clinical research studies.

Each Fellow will be involved in at least two research projects, one of which should be presented at the annual thesis day in June.  It is advisable to discuss available research opportunities early on during the Fellowship with the different attendings and then inform Dr. An of the projects that you are going to be working on to insure appropriate regulations are followed. There are many on-going basic science projects that are done by the faculty in Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and collaborators.

Areas of ongoing investigation include:

• Bone remodeling
• Biomechanics
• Materials analysis of orthopedic implants
• Development of new prosthetic devices
• Tissue engineering
• Bone biology
• Cartilage biochemistry
• Growth factors
• Intervertebral disc biology
• Clinical outcome studies

Spine Research Collaborators

• Ana Chee, Ph.D.; Peng Shi, Ph.D.: Orthopaedic Spine Biology Laboratory
• Nozomu Inoue, M.D., Ph.D., Director of Biomechanics Laboratory
• Alejandro Espinosa, Ph.D., Biomedical Engineer
• Thomas Turner, D.V.M: Director of Animal Research
• Robert Urban: Director of histology laboratory
• Raghu Natarajan, Ph.D.: Director of Finite Element Modeling
• Gabriella Cs-Szabo, Ph.D. Professor of Biochemistry
• Im Sampen, Ph.D. Professor of Biochemistry
• Rick Sumner, Ph.D.: Bone Biology (Chairman of Anatomy)