Dr. Kang is a past recipient of the highest societal awards for spinal research conferred by the leading international spine societies—the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine (ISSLS), the Cervical Spine Research Society (CSRS), and the North American Spine Society (NASS).

Constance R. Chu, MD
Cartilage Restoration Laboratory

Dr. Constance R. Chu is Director of the Cartilage Restoration Program at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a practicing Orthopaedic surgeon with subspecialization in Joint Replacement and Cartilage Repair. Dr. Chu is one of only a handful of board certified Orthopaedic surgeons conducting research funded by the National Institutes of Health. Her cartilage research program is recognized for innovative research integrating cellular and molecular biology along with advanced and novel imaging technologies to study cartilage degeneration, repair and regeneration. In just the first two months of 2006 alone, 22 abstracts from her laboratory have been accepted or presented at prestigious international meetings such as the International Cartilage Repair Society, the Orthopaedic Research Society, and Regenerate.

Dr. Chu graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1983 to become the first Chinese-American woman to graduate from West Point. After distinguished military service, Dr. Chu began her medical career and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1992. She completed her Orthopedic Residency at the University of California San Diego and returned to Harvard for subspecialty training in joint replacement and cartilage repair at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is tenure stream faculty at the University of Pittsburgh.

Joon Y. Lee, MD
Ferguson Laboratory for Orthopaedic and Spine Research

Dr. Lee specializes in cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine surgery in the greater Pittsburgh area. Dr. Lee graduated summa cum laude from University of California, Berkeley, and obtained his medical degree from Yale Medical School. He completed his residency in orthopaedic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, PA. He completed his fellowship in spine surgery at the Rothman Institute-Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Lee performs spinal surgery using standard techniques and the latest cutting-edge surgical technologies. These include minimally invasive spine surgery, disc replacement, and microsurgical decompression. For certain spinal problems, these new techniques may allow faster recovery and eliminate the need for spinal fusion. Dr. Lee has been involved in research at the National Institutes of Health, Yale Medical School Research Laboratories, and the Orthopaedic Research Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh. He has authored numerous articles and lectured extensively on topics such as cervical disc herniation, cervical myelopathy, cervical disc replacement, lumbar disc herniation, lumbar spinal stenosis, lumbar disc replacement, spinal fusion, spine trauma, microsurgical decompression, and non-fusion technologies. For more information you can go to: pittsburghspinesurgery.com.

Zong-Ming Li, PhD
Hand Laboratory

Dr. Zong-Ming Li is an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh in the Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery, Bioengineering, and Occupational Therapy. In the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Dr. Li serves as the Director of the Hand Research Laboratory where he and his lab team work on innovative studies involving the human hand. Dr. Li is also a Faculty Member at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. Before joining the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Li was an Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy as well as the Director of the Motor Function Laboratory at Walsh University in Ohio from 1998 to 2001. Prior to coming to the United States, he was a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Orthopaedics and Traumatology in Rui Jin Hospital from 1992 to 1995. Dr. Li earned his BSc in Engineering Mechanics from Southwest Jiaotong University and his MSc in Engineering Mechanics and Musculoskeletal Biomechanics from the Chengdu University of Science and Technology in China. He received his PhD in Kinesiology/Biomechanics in 1998 from The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Li has broad research interests in biomechanics and motor control of the neuromusculoskeletal system. His clinical research efforts focus on utilizing multidisciplinary approaches to study carpal tunnel syndrome. Current and prospective research areas include: neuromuscular control of the hand and fingers, hand motor function, finger joint stiffness, wrist kinematics and kinetics, carpal tunnel morphometry, carpal tunnel mechanics, and molecular mechanisms of the transverse carpal ligament and the tenosynovium.

Rebecca Studer, PhD

Dr Studer received her PhD in Physiology from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and completed post-doctoral work in the Departments of Medicine and Physiology. Her early work has focused on cellular signal transduction in the pathophysiology of hepatic carbohydrate metabolism and diabetic nephropathy. Since becoming associated with the Orthopaedic Department, she has explored relationships between nitric oxide and TGF-beta in chondrocytes from arthritic joints in collaboration with Dr. Chris Evans in the Ferguson Lab, established an independent lab at the VA to study the mechanisms underlying the insensitivity of aging/arthritic chondrocytes to the anabolic actions of IGF-1, and collaborated with Dr Constance Chu on studies related to cartilage metabolism and repair. She currently maintains the VA lab and collaborates with Dr Kang’s Spine Research group in the Ferguson Lab. Dr Studer’s current work involves defining the cellular mechanisms underlying intervertebral disc degeneration. Specific aims are to define the role of p38 MAPK signaling in effecting the catabolic and anti-anabolic actions of cytokines on intervertebral disc cells, to develop methodology for, and define the outcomes of, silencing this signal pathway, and to translate this in vitro work into an in vivo gene therapy to test in the stab model of rabbit disc degeneration.

Gwendolyn Sowa, MD, PhD

Dr. Gwendolyn Sowa received a PhD in Biochemistry in 1997 and a degree in medicine in 2000 from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. She completed her physical medicine and rehabilitation residency at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Northwestern Medical School in 2004.

Gwendolyn Sowa, MD, PhD joined the University of Pittsburgh Departments of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Orthopaedics in 2005 as an Assistant Professor. She is Co-Director of the Ferguson Laboratory for Orthopaedic Research, and has an active research program investigating the role of mechanical forces in disc degeneration. Dr Sowa is an award winning researcher and has presented her findings at international conferences and symposia.

Nam Vo, PhD

Nam Vo received his PhD degree with Dr. Michael Chamberlin in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1998 and completed his Post-Doctoral training with Dr. Michael Lai at the University of Southern California in 2003. His Doctorate research involved detailed molecular analyses of the early stages of E. coli transcription. He continued his training by studying the mechanism and regulation of hepatitis C virus RNA replication, initially as a Postdoctoral Fellow and subsequently as an Assistant Specialist in Dr. Caroline Kane at the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Vo also taught Introductory Microbiology at Contra Costa College in 2005-2006.

Dr. Vo joined the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery of UPMC as a Research Assistant Professor in 2006. He is currently working in the Ferguson Spine Research Laboratory to investigate the molecular and cellular processes responsible for intervertebral disc diseases, with special emphasis on understanding gene regulation of the major disc extracellular matrix constituents.

James H-C Wang, PhD
MechanoBiology Laboratory

Dr. James H-C. Wang is currently an Associate Professor in the Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery, Bioengineering, and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. He serves as the Director of the MechanoBiology Laboratory in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. Dr. Wang is also a Faculty Member at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Wang received his Bachelor of Science in Solid Mechanics in 1982 and his Master of Science in Experimental Biomechanics in 1989 from Tongji University. After working for nine years at the same university, he came to the United States in 1991 and studied orthopaedic biomechanics at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery of the Texas Tech Health Science Center. Then, he went to the University of Cincinnati (UC), pursuing his Ph.D. in bioengineering. He spent the next four years at the UC School of Medicine’s Cell Biology Department, where he studied cell mechanobiology. After receiving his Ph.D., he worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins Medical School and Washington University in St. Louis, where he studied the molecular signaling pathways that lead to actin cytoskeletal remodeling of human endothelial cells in response to dynamic mechanical stretching conditions. Following his research fellowships at these two institutions, Dr. Wang took a faculty position in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1998 and has remained as a faculty member since then.

One of Dr. Wang’s major research interests is elucidating the developmental mechanisms of tendinopathy using in vitro and in vivo model systems and enhancing the biological, biochemical, and biomechanical properties of healing tendons and ligaments using functional tissue engineering approaches. In addition, he is interested in the cellular and molecular mechanisms of how mechanical forces are transmitted to cells and translated into anabolic or catabolic cellular responses. In recent years, Dr. Wang has been working on developing new biotechnological tools such as micropost force sensor arrays (MFSA) and cell traction force microscopy (CTFM) for basic cell mechanobiology studies.