Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine

I am a Small Animal Surgeon with a practice focus on orthopedic surgery. My major area of basic science research is on in vitro meniscal tissue engineering, using waste tissue obtained during clinical arthroscopy. Meniscal injury and deficiency is a major cause of pain, disability and irreversible osteoarthritis in dogs and humans. As the menisci have minimal to absent healing responses, creating autologous fibrocartilages in vitro through tissue engineering may be a viable strategy for addressing the meniscal deficient stifle or knee. My current work has focused on creating fibrocartilage-like tissue from synovial and meniscal cells cultured from clinical patients in need of engineered stifle tissues. Specifically, my lab has synthesized autologous, scaffold free, tensioned neotissues, to avoid the complications seen with use of synthetic, allogenous, and xenogenic scaffolds in meniscal tissue engineering applications. My clinical research focuses on minimally invasive surgery and validation of surgical techniques. I have a long-term goal of bringing discoveries made in my laboratory (following efficacy and safety analysis) to the hospital to benefit my patients.