Rudav did a fantastic job today presenting his work investigating the contribution of Ligament fibroblasts and Enthesis fibrochondrocytes to Engineered Ligament-to-bone construct maturation at the VCU Undergraduate Research Symposium!!! Way to go Rudav!

Congratulations to Dr. Austin Gouldin who gave a great defense presentation on his work unraveling the multiscale role of AGEs in aging Menisci!!! Thanks to all who came out to support him both in person and online. Particularly thank you to his committee members, Drs. Rebecca Heise, Michael McClure, Gregory Golladay, and Matthew Halquist. Austin was one of the first PhD student of the Puetzer Lab and has been paramount in getting the lab up and running. We will greatly miss him as he transitions to a job in industry! 

We had a great time networking and sharing our work at the VCU Women's Health Research Day today! Kelly shared her work which has found disuse reduces Achilles Tendon mechanics, but via different mechanism in Males and Females, which could point to the need for differential rehab.

Congratulations to Puetzer Lab PhD Student Kelly Ott for being awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!! The NSF GRFP awards exceptional graduate students with 3 years stipend and tuition coverage to advance their studies in STEM-based disciplines. Kelly will be continuing her research evaluating how slow stretch elongation drives hierarchical fiber maturation in engineered ligaments.  You can read more about her journey at VCU and her work in this great write up!  Congrats Kelly!!!