Prof. Thanh Nguyen garners the NIH R21 Trailblazer Award for his work on “Bionic Self-stimulated Cartilage.”

Dr. Nguyen received a NIH R21 trailblazer young investigator award for a project entitled “bionic self-stimulated cartilage”, in collaboration with Dr. Cato Laurencin at UConn Health, school of medicine. This highly-interdisciplinary project aims to integrate a new biopolymer, developed in Nguyen Lab, with a chondrocyte tissue graft to create an exciting hybrid artificial cartilage. The PIs hope this bionic cartilage in implantation will be able to adapt to mechanical joint-force for obtaining an optimal cartilage growth and regeneration. Results from this research will have a great impact for an effective treatment of cartilage diseases such as osteoarthritis. The research is a collaborative work between Nguyen lab (UConn Storrs) in materials processing, device fabrication, tissue integration, and in vitro study, and Laurencin Lab (UConn Health) in animal study and in vivo assessment.