Research Interests
The central focus of our research can be divided programmatically into three parts: 1) Study of the pathological impact of obesity on the skeleton, particularly bone and joint health and fracture healing, 2) Elucidating the role of the gut microbiome in posttraumatic and obesity-associated osteoarthritis, and 3) Development of disease-modifying treatments to address joint degeneration in osteoarthritis. Our work spans from bench to bedside, involving basic molecular-cellular biology and microbiology in microbial and cell culture systems, state-of-the-art animal models of disease, and human clinical trials. Our aim is to pursue basic study of skeletal homeostasis and disease, using information gained from that work to develop therapeutic strategies addressing key orthopedic challenges including fracture non-union, osteoporosis, and osteoarthritis.