Kaplan Lab - Mission Statement and Research Focus/Approach

Kaplan Research Laboratory

Mission Statement:

Our mission is to establish multidisciplinary approaches for the evaluation, treatment and prevention of partial-thickness articular cartilage (PARC) lesions.

Research Focus:

(1) Laboratory investigations of PARC lesions and treatment options using osteoarthritic (OA) and/or animal articular cartilage

Evaluate OA cartilage metabolic activity under various experimental conditions (i.e. heat stress, mechanical shaving, radiofrequency energy (RFE)
Evaluate PARC lesion treatment options such as cartilage smoothing using various chondroplasty devices (mechanical shavers, RFE)
Evaluate factors that may affect the development of PARC lesions/osteoarthritis such as estrogen replacement therapy (ERT), age, gender and body mass index (BMI) using osteoarthritic cartilage
Evaluate effectiveness of potential non-surgical PARC lesion treatments such as various growth factors (i.e. insulin-like growth factor (IgF-1) and hyaluronic acid (HA) using osteoarthritic and bovine cartilage
Collaborate with UW bioengineering and radiology to create novel PARC lesion treatments and/or instrumentation for evaluation of PARC lesion progression (i.e. MRI)
Utilize a robotic device to control velocity and pressure of various chondroplasty instruments (i.e. mechanical, radiofrequency) on the cartilage surface to test instrument penetration and resulting cell death and metabolic activity

(2) Pre-clinical studies that create a PARC lesion model in various animal species and evaluate various treatment options to prevent lesion progression

Collaborate with the UW School of Veterinary Medicine to create novel PARC lesion animal models to study disease progression
Evaluate potential treatment medications and growth factors (i.e. insulin-like growth factor {IgF-1}, hyaluronic acid {HA}) using PARC lesion animal models

(3) Clinical investigations that study PARC lesion development, evaluate various invasive and non-invasive treatment options to prevent lesion progression and determine means to prevent lesion formation.

Evaluate non-invasive methods/instrumentation (i.e. MRI) to quantitatively measure PARC lesion severity after trauma, progression and effectiveness of surgical treatment (i.e. size of lesion, location Vs treatment modalities)
Establish predictors (i.e. biomarkers [protein or chemical that increases/decreases] to help determine which lesion will propagate

Research Approach:

(1) Collect, store and analyze PARC lesion literature articles

Articular cartilage library that includes digital and hard-copy articles
Web-link to Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, American Joint Bone Joint Surgery (JBJS), Arthroscopy and American Journal of Sports Medicine (AJSM)

(2) Manage PARC lesion data

Store, analyze and retrieve data utilizing state of the art computer system that includes a data storage/management system, document preparation/presentation and imaging capabilities

(3) Share data with collaborators and the public

Website for all PARC research data (PARC.edu)

Public domain: contains data, images, protocols, published manuscripts, and links to UW (Sports Medicine, Orthopedics and Rehabilitation, Health Science Library, PubMed)
Private domain: password protected area to post manuscripts in preparation, editing, revising for author simultaneous review/editing