ORS PSRS 2017

The Iatridis & Illien-Junger Labs had a great time at the ORS PSRS 4th International Spine Research Symposium in Lake Harmony PA! Chaired by Makarand Risbud, PSRS is a unique meeting in which prominent investigators and trainees in the spine research community come together to share their latest findings, trends, and ideas.

Congratulations to our PhD Candidate, Olivia Torre, on being a recipient of the “ORS PSRS Trainee Podium Award for Outstanding Scientific Research”! Her presentation, “Functional Restoration of Intervertebral Disc Biomechanics Following Neonatal Herniation Injury,” was delivered during the ‘Disc Biomechanics and Imaging’ session on October 26th, 2017.

Congratulations to Assistant Professor, Dr. Svenja Illien-Junger, on being a recipient of the Young Investigator Award. Dr. Illien-Junger advises ORL’s MS student, George Zhao, who presented the poster, “Phlpp1 in Cell Proliferation and Apoptosis During IVD Growth and Degeneration,” during the second poster session on October 25th, 2017.

In addition to these awards, Dr. Iatridis gave a fantastic talk titled, “Annulus Fibrosus Injury, Repair, and Regeneration” and Dr. Krishnamoorthy presented her poster, “Characterization of Human Lumbar Intervertebral Disc Glycosaminoglycan Sulfation Patterns using Multiple Reaction Monitoring with Liquid Chromatography-mass Spectrometry”.

We are very proud of these achievements and we look forward to ORL’s future research successes!

In addition to presenting our research and networking within the community, the Spine Lab enjoyed the time away from NYC in the Poconos.

Team learns about disc pathobiology:

Dr. James Iatridis giving his talk:

 Olivia receiving her award:

Svenja receiving her award:

Einstein Meeting 2017

Thursday, October 19th marked the 6th annual Musculoskeletal Repair and Regeneration Symposium hosted by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Orthopaedic research at Mount Sinai was well represented at the meeting with multiple posters and a talk from Dr. James Iatridis on annulus fibrosis repair in a large animal model. Most excitingly, Olivia Torre was named one of three winners of the Young Investigator Award for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows for her work on injury and regeneration in the neonatal mouse intervertebral disc.

Take a look at the Huang Laboratory Page for a Related Post!

Publication in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research!

Congratulations to the team on the publication of “Hyperosmolarity induces notochordal cell differentiation with aquaporin3 upregulation and reduced N-cadherin expression.”!

The recently published paper in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research identifies extracellular osmolarity as a triggering mechanism for nucleus pulposus maturation and identifies a compensatory shift in osmosensitive and mechanotransductive proteins from notochoral cells to small nucleus pulposus cells. This work furthers our understanding of the processes underlying IVD aging and mechanotransduction.