Thrilled to have Dr. Ravi Komaravolu join our lab. Ravi brings with him expertise in vascular biology and lipids, which will be a great asset to our newly funded VA project. Please check out our personnel page for his bio.
Lending a hand for the Halloween pumpkin carving contest
New VA Merit Award
We are excited to announce a new grant from the Veterans Administration. This research will help us to determine how intra-articular adipose tissue lipolysis mediates macrophage activation and joint inflammation in post-traumatic osteoarthritis. We will test the hypothesis that exercise reduces osteoarthritis pain through metabolic mechanisms that alter immune cell activation to reduce joint inflammation. This research may lead to new metabolic-based drug therapies that provide safer alternatives to opioids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for reducing osteoarthritis pain.
OA Fellows in Training Bootcamp (FIT)
Thanks to Farsh Guilak and Richard Loeser for organizing this terrific workshop sponsored by the Arthritis Foundation and the OREF. Tim gave a lecture on Metabolism, Obesity, and OA, and Shouan attended the workshop, which was held in Chicago. It was a great opportunity to catch up with colleagues and for Shouan to network with leaders in the field, including Frank Beier!
More lab additions
In August and September we added two new members to the lab – Dr. Padmaja Mehta-D’souza and Ms. Taylor Block. They bring with them a wealth of expertise in Protein Biochemistry and Lab Animal Management, respectively. Please check out their bios on our personnel page. WELCOME!
Welcome Kamil and Anita
We’re thrilled to welcome Kamil Kobak and Anita Jopkiewicz to the lab as our 2019-2020 Polish Student Trainees. Kamil is finishing his doctoral studies in the Laboratory for Applied Research on Cardiovascular System, Department of Heart Diseases, Wroclaw Medical University. Anita is working to complete her Masters degree from the University of Wrocław, Faculty of Biotechnology.
Good luck Dawid
2019 Arthritis Walk
The lab was excited to participate in another successful Arthritis Walk to support the Arthritis Foundation. The Medical Honoree this year was our very own Dr. Matlock Jeffries! Two important guests were on hand to celebrate the occasion — Oklahoma City Thunder’s mascot Rumble the Bison and our U.S. Representative for Oklahoma’s 5th congressional district, Congresswoman Kendra Horn.
OARSI 2019 – Toronto!
Tim attended the annual meeting in OARSI this year. He presented the lab’s poster on the role of Sirt3 in obesity-induced knee OA, and he also spoke in the ORS-OARSI Discussion Group on “Bridging Disciplines: A Pathway to Finding Solutions for Osteoarthritis.” This discussion group was lead by Dr. Tom Andriacchi (Stanford) and included short talks by Dr. Constance Chu (Stanford), Dr. Richard Loeser (UNC), Dr. Tim Griffin (OMRF), and Dr. Ewa Roos (Univ. Southern Denmark). The goal of this discussion group is to develop new multidisciplinary approaches to treat and prevent OA. Tim will be leading this group next year — he’s looking forward to continuing the momentum of this important work.
Awesome job, Dawid!
OMRF hosted the 2019 Oklahoma Geroscience Conference this year, with an outstanding slate of speakers from the field of “Inflammaging”. We were so proud and excited when Dawid was announced as one of the Best Poster student award winners. Congratulations!! He’s not letting this award gather any dust and will use it to attend the 2019 AGE meeting in San Francisco in June.