ORTHOPEDICS • CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
Research that gels
Dr. Payne and her lab are testing a number of
factors, alone and in combination, with the
potential to repair bony bars. Their most promising
projects build mimetic and regenerative factors
into two main delivery systems.
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Nancy Hadley-Miller, MD, has spent most
of her career researching the molecular
genetics of scoliosis. Her breakthrough
work in growth plate regeneration came
out of a series of happy accidents.
Dr. Hadley-Miller. Her 30-year career has been
focused on the molecular genetics of scoliosis.
She heard about the grant talking to a colleague
after a surgery, and she ran it past Dr. Payne, whose
office was just a few doors down. As it turned
out, Dr. Payne knew someone they could work
with at Mines. For her, it represented a new and
interesting research direction. For Dr. Hadley-
Miller, it was something like a return.
“In fellowship I always wanted to do something
with growth plate,” she recalls. “But I didn’t find
a bone lab to work in, didn’t have the mentorship.
That’s how I ended up in scoliosis. I followed
another idea. It wasn’t a bad way to go.”
Now, though, with funding from both the Gates
Grubstake Fund and the National Institutes of
Health, their lab is just one of a few in the world
doing groundbreaking work in growth plate
regeneration, and it’s leading the field. For Dr.
Payne, that conversation has fundamentally
altered the course of her career.
Some of that is coincidence, Dr. Hadley-Miller
acknowledges. But more than that, it’s having the
pieces in the right place.
“Patient care is our bread and butter,” she says.
“Here we’re using it to pay for research. But you
really have to want to do it. You have to invest in
the people and the infrastructure to make those
connections happen.”
She knocks back the rest of her tea. And with that,
she’s off to surgery. ●
Working with biopolymer expert
Melissa Krebs, PhD, of the Colorado School
of Mines (see “Fetalizing the Adult,” p. 57),
Dr. Payne’s team is testing microgels made
of chitosan, a biomaterial derived from
crustacean cells. They’re using them as a
delivery mechanism for antibodies that
block angiogenesis, as well as factors that
attract stem cells from surrounding tissue
to encourage cartilage growth. Those
studies are seperate for now, but the aim
of the NIH grant that funds them is to bring
them together.
In their collaboration with Dr. Bryant
and others at CU Boulder, the team is
testing a biomimetic hydrogel delivery
system based on polyethylene glycol, a
synthetic biomaterial ideal for attaching
biofactors. To this one they attach factors
that promote cartilage growth and the
environment it likes to grow in. “Once
we put mesenchymal stem cells into this
hydrogel,” says Dr. Payne, “they start
producing collagen type 2 and sulfated
glycosaminoglycans” — the chemical
backbone, so to speak, of cartilage.
0
Surgical site infections in standard spinal
fusion patients (2015-2017)
98%
ACL reconstruction success after 2 years,
with 87.9% of individuals returning to play
3 years post-surgery
ONLY 1%
Of patients with club foot require major
surgery for correction due to our clinical
care guidelines
2.41 DAY
Median decrease in length of opioid
prescriptions at discharge (4/18-10/18)
LEADERSHIP:
Mark Erickson, MD, MMM
Co-Chief, Pediatric Orthopedics,
Rose Brown Chair in Pediatric Orthopedics
Nancy Hadley-Miller, MD
Co-Chief, Pediatric Orthopedics
For orthopedic healthcare professional resources,
visit childrenscolorado.org/OrthoHCP.
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NEW CONSTELLATIONS
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