eCM Scientific Editor

Sibylle Grad, PD, PhD
AO Research Institute Davos, Davos, CH

Sibylle Grad is a Principal Scientist at the AO Research Institute Davos (ARI), Switzerland. Within the Regenerative Orthopaedics Program of the ARI, she is the Focus Area Leader for Disc and Cartilage Biology. Dr Grad obtained her PhD in Natural Sciences from the Department of Cell Biology of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETHZ), Switzerland. After completing her first post-doctoral training, she joined the ARI to get involved in orthopaedic research. Since then, she has acquired extensive research expertise in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine with focus on articular cartilage and intervertebral disc repair and regeneration. Her projects include whole organ culture models and bioreactors for degenerative disc disorders, cell therapy, molecular therapy, stem/progenitor cell homing, annulus fibrosus repair, circulating and tissue biomarkers, bioreactor loaded explant models for cartilage and osteochondral defects. Her expertise in advanced ex vivo organ culture systems for studying both disease/degeneration and repair/regeneration in orthopedic research is widely acknowledged. Sibylle Grad is also a private docent with habilitation at the ETHZ and course leader in the graduate program of the ETH Department of Health Science and Technology. She has obtained funding from many national, European and international agencies and has been section leader and partner of several collaborative projects. Her publications list includes more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and 10 book chapters. She is a co-organiser of the eCM Annual Conference and has served as Topic Chair, Spine section research chair and program committee member of the Orthopaedic Research Society.

eCM Guest Editor

Zhen Li, Assoc Prof, PhD
AO Research Institute Davos, Davos, CH

Dr Zhen Li is a Senior Research Scientist at the AO Research Institute Davos (ARI), Switzerland. She obtained a Bachelor degree of Bioengineering in 2005, at Chu Kechen Honors College, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. Then, she carried out her doctoral thesis at ARI and Zhejiang University on the topic of cartilage tissue engineering in 2005-2010. Her research interest includes intervertebral disc and cartilage tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Dr Zhen Li is the author of over 30 scientific papers and 2 book chapters, with a total IF of 120, citation number over 1300 and H-index of 15. She has received various funding from SNSF-SSSTC, German Spine Society, SET Foundation, AOSpine, NSFC, etc. She has supervised more than 25 research fellows, postgraduate students and postdocs. She is a board member of the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) Spine Section and a member of eCM Journal International Review Panel, European Development Committee Member of International Chinese Musculoskeletal Research Society (ICMRS), Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) and AOSpine.

eCM Guest Editor

Andrea Vernengo, Assoc Prof, PhD
AO Research Institute Davos, Davos, CH

Dr Vernengo is a researcher in the Regenerative Orthopaedics Program at the AO Research Institute Davos (ARI). Dr Vernengo completed her PhD in Chemical Engineering in 2007 at Drexel University with a thesis entitled 'Injectable Bioadhesive Thermogelling Hydrogels for Repair of the Nucleus Pulposus and Annulus Fibrosus of the Intervertebral Disc'. In 2009, she joined the faculty in the College of Engineering at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ, USA. She was promoted in 2014 to position of Associate Professor in the Departments of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering (joint). She has received funding from various agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), New Jersey Health Foundation and the Orthoregeneration Network. She was the recipient of the Outstanding Faculty of the Year Award from the Delaware Valley Chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2014 and named one of Nerdscholar's Top 40 under 40: Professors Who Inspire in 2015. Currently, Dr Vernengo is at the ARI, pursuing research projects related to the interverbal disc, including induced pluripotent stem cell-based regeneration strategies and 3D bioprinting of cell-instructive scaffolds for annulus fibrosus tissue engineering.

Published manuscripts

• Editorial – Disc Biology Special Issue
  A Vernengo, Z Li, S Grad
  
  
• A method for measuring intra-tissue swelling pressure using a needle micro-osmometer
  CM Krull, AD Lutton, JW Olesik, BA Walter

• The tissue-renin-angiotensin-system of the human intervertebral disc
  Z Li, L Wystrach, A Bernstein, S Grad, M Alini, RG Richards, D Kubosch, N Südkamp, K Izadpanah, EJ Kubosch, G Lang
  
  
• Balancing biological and biomechanical performance in intervertebral disc repair: a systematic review of injectable cell delivery biomaterials
  CJ Panebianco, JH Meyers, J Gansau, WW Hom, JC Iatridis
  
  
• Disc wall structural abnormalities can act as initiation sites for herniation
  K Wade, N Berger-Roscher, V Rasche, H Wilke
  
  
• Genetic murine models of spinal development and degeneration provide valuable insights into intervertebral disc pathobiology
  J Melrose, S Tessier, MV Risbud
  
  
• 3D distribution of perlecan within intervertebral disc chondrons suggests novel regulatory roles for this multifunctional modular heparan sulphate proteoglycan
  AJ Hayes, J Melrose
  
  
• Non-viral reprogramming of human nucleus pulposus cells with FOXF1 via extracellular vesicle delivery: an in vitro and in vivo study
  S Tang, A Salazar-Puerta, J Richards, S Khan, JA Hoyland, D Gallego-Perez, B Walter, N Higuita-Castro, D Purmessur
  
  
• Osmotic adaptation of nucleus pulposus cells: the role of aquaporin 1, aquaporin 4 and transient receptor potential vanilloid 4
  JW Snuggs, RAD Bunning, CL Le Maitre
  
  
• The effect of hyaluronic acid on nucleus pulposus extracellular matrix production through hypoxia-inducible factor-1a transcriptional activation of CD44 under hypoxia
  F Zhang, X Liu, B Li, Z Li, S Grad, D Chen, M Gao, S Liu
  
  
• Priming as a strategy to overcome detrimental pH effects on cells for intervertebral disc regeneration
  J Gansau, CT Buckley
  
  
• Spatiotemporal and functional characterisation of transient receptor potential vanilloid 4 (TRPV4) in the murine intervertebral disc
  MKM Kim, R Ramachandran, CA Séguin
  
  
• For whom the disc tolls: intervertebral disc degeneration, back pain and toll-like receptors
  DG Bisson, M Mannarino, R Racine, L Haglund


• Intervertebral disc degeneration and regeneration: a motion segment perspective
  B Ashinsky, HE Smith, RL Mauck, SE Gullbrand
  
  
• The role of altered glycosylation in human nucleus pulposus cells in inflammation and degeneration
  K Joyce, IL Mohd Isa, A Krouwels, L Creemers, A Devitt, A Pandit
  
  
• IL-1ß-pre-conditioned mesenchymal stem/stromal cells’ secretome modulates the inflammatory response and aggrecan deposition in intervertebral disc
  JR Ferreira, GQ Teixeira, E Neto, C Ribeiro-Machado, AM Silva, J Caldeira, C Leite Pereira, S Bidarra, AF Maia, M Lamghari, MA Barbosa, RM Gonçalves
  
  
• Tungsten accumulates in the intervertebral disc and vertebrae stimulating disc degeneration and upregulating markers of inflammation and pain
  MP Grant, CR VanderSchee, H Chou, A Bolt, LM Epure, D Kuter, J Antoniou, S Bohle, KK Mann, F Mwale
  
  
• Inhibition of toll-like receptor 4 protects against inflammation-induced mechanobiological alterations to intervertebral disc cells
  TD Jacobsen, PA Hernandez, NO Chahine
  
  
• Prenatal muscle forces are necessary for vertebral segmentation and disc structure, but not for notochord involution in mice
  A Levillain, S Ahmed, D-M Kaimaki, S Schuler, S Barros, D Labonte, JC Iatridis, NC Nowlan
  
  
• Pro-fibrotic phenotype of bone marrow stromal cells in Modic type 1 changes
  I Heggli, S Epprecht, A Juengel, R Schuepbach, N Farshad-Amacker, C German, T Mengis, N Herger, L Straumann, S Baumgartner, M Betz, JM Spirig, F Wanivenhaus, N Ulrich, D Bellut, F Brunner, M Farshad, O Distler, S Dudli
  
  
• The nucleus pulposus microenvironment in the intervertebral disc: the fountain of youth?
  J Guerrero, S Häckel, AS Croft, S Hoppe, CE Albers, B Gantenbein
  
  
• Mesenchymal stem cell secretome decreases the inflammatory response in annulus fibrosus organ cultures
  C Neidlinger-Wilke, A Ekkerlein, RM Goncalves, JR Ferreira, A Ignatius, HJ Wilke, GQ Teixeira
  
  
• NF-kB decoy oligodeoxynucleotide preserves disc height in a rabbit anular-puncture model and reduces pain induction in a rat xenograft-radiculopathy model
  K Kato, K Akeda, S Miyazaki, J Yamada, C Muehleman, K Miyamoto, YA Asanuma, K Asanuma, T Fujiwara, ME Lenz, T Nakazawa, H An, K Masuda
  
  
• Correlation between magnetic resonance, X-ray imaging alterations and histological changes in an ovine model of age-related disc degeneration
  N Bouhsina, C Decante, JB Hardel, S Madec, J Abadie, A Hamel, C Le Visage, J Lesoeur, J Guicheux, J Clouet, M Fusellier
  
  
• Small-sized magnesium cylinders influence subchondral bone quality in osteoarthritic rabbits – an in vivo pilot study
  N Angrisani, R Willumeit-Römer, H Windhagen, B Mavila Chathoth, V Scheper, B Wiese, H Helmholz, J Reifenrath
  
  
• Intervertebral disc decellularisation: progress and challenges
  MF Fiordalisi, AJ Silva, M Barbosa, RM Gonçalves, J Caldeira
  
  
• Hydrostatic pressure mimicking diurnal spinal movements maintains anabolic turnover in bovine nucleus pulposus cells in vitro
  F Vieira, J Kang, L Ferreira, S Mizuno
  
  
• Monocarboxylate transporter 1-mediated lactate accumulation promotes nucleus pulposus degeneration under hypoxia in a 3D multilayered nucleus pulposus degeneration model
  CY Wang, MK Hsieh, YJ Hu, A Bit, PL Lai