Stephen Sloan Wins Presentation Award at Spine Section Meeting

Stephen Sloan, a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering, recently won a podium presentation award for his talk “Combined Annulus Fibrosus and Nucleus Pulposus Repair Prevents Degeneration in the Ovine Lumbar Spine” presented at the meeting of the Philadelphia Spine Research Society and the Spine Section of the Orthopaedic Research Society. The study, funded in part by Fidia Farmaceutici, Sp.A., investigated a new approach for treating degenerative disc disease. This approach combines and injectable collagen patch for fixing tears in the outer portion of the disc with an injectable hyaluronic acid formulation to hydrate the central portion of the disc. MRI scans showed that the combined therapy is more effective at maintaining disc height and hydration and mechanical analysis showed that restoring disc structure was associated with improvements in disc function. Future studies will focus on moving this technology toward clinical trials.

 

Congratulations to Stephen on winning this prestigious award!

Steven Ayala