BME and Orthopaedics faculty receive multi-institutional NIH R01 grant to guide personalize treatment for Achilles Tendinopathy
An interdisciplinary team from the Lampe Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, the Department of Orthopaedics, and the University of Delaware has received a new 5-year, $3M R01 Grant from the National Institutes of Health to explore Achilles subtendon structure-function relationships and their role in treatment outcomes in patients with Achilles tendinopathy.
The project will be led by PI and Lampe Joint BME alumnus Dr. Stephanie Cone (University of Delaware) and UNC subaward PI and BME Professor Dr. Jason Franz, and will see pivotal contributions from BME/Orthopaedics Assistant Professor Dr. Geoffrey Handsfield and Physical Therapy Professor Dr. Karin Silbernagel (University of Delaware).
Achilles tendinopathy is a painful and debilitating condition, and unfortunately the gold-standard treatment – exercise-based therapy – is sub-optimal in nearly half of all patients with high recurrence rates. The complex anatomy of the Achilles tendon, which connects the heel to three separate muscles in an anatomical arrangement that varies across people, may lead to this inconsistency in success rates with the current one-size-fits-all treatment.
Together, the research team will integrate advanced in vivo techniques, including novel biomechanical sensors and cutting-edge medical imaging, with state-of-the-art modeling approaches to enhance our understanding of anatomic variability in Achilles tendinopathy toward more effective, personalized clinical interventions.