Congratulations to the team on the publication of “Accumulation and localization of macrophage phenotypes with human intervertebral disc degeneration.” in the Spine Journal!

This paper is one of the first to identify and localize multiple macrophage phenotypic markers in human IVDs. The most important findings identified CCR7+ and CD163+ macrophages increased with IVD degeneration grade and were significantly more present in IVD regions with structural irregularities and defects. These results improve our understanding of the important role macrophages and macrophage-like cells play in the complex inflammatory processes involved in IVD degeneration.