Farshid Guilak

Mildred B. Simon Research Professor of Orthopedic Surgery

Keywords:

osteoarthritis, obesity, mechanobiology and mechanisms of mechanical signal transduction in cartilage, stem-cell therapy

Research:

My laboratory’s research program focuses on osteoarthritis, a painful and debilitating disease of the synovial joints that affects over 27 million people in the United States. My laboratory uses a highly collaborative, multidisciplinary approach to investigate the role of biomechanical and biological factors in the onset and progression of osteoarthritis, with a particular emphasis on the development of new molecular and cell-based therapies. The laboratory has taken an interdisciplinary approach to study the disease at all different scales, ranging from clinical studies of joint loading, weight loss, nutrition, and exercise in people with osteoarthritis, to the development of various animal models of osteoarthritis, to tissue-level models of cartilage physiology and pathology under mechanical loading, and at to the cellular and subcellular levels to understand the transduction pathways involved in mechanical signaling. Each hierarchical size scale has specific advantages and disadvantages; thus, the ability to cross different levels of study in one laboratory is extremely valuable in translating findings from one system to another.

Research in the laboratory covers several major areas, including: 1) Obesity, inflammation, and osteoarthritis; 2) Mechanobiology and mechanisms of mechanical signal transduction in cartilage; and 3) Stem cell-based therapies for osteoarthritis.

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