2007 TFP Recipients

Dr. Bal’s recent research projects include Comparison of Tissue-Engineered Osteochondral Grafts Fabricated with Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Trabecular Metal or Allograft Bone, Cementless Alumina/Alumina Total Hip Arthroplasty, Feasability Study -- Encore Ceramic Femur, Flexibility in Administration of Arixtra for Prevention of Symptomatic Venous Thromboembolism in Orthopaedic Surgery, and Functional Testing of Tissue-Engineered Osteochondral Grafts with Bioactive Glass or Allograft Substrates Surfaces with MSC-Seeded Hdrogel.

Dr. Bal used his Traveling Fellowship for a three-week visit to Clark T. Hung, PhD, at Columbia University in New York City. Continuing an established collaboration with the COL, Dr. Bal visited Dr. Hung’s lab to learn laboratory organization techniques, to share research goals, and to competitively position his work for further funding.

Dr. Bal used his Traveling Fellowship to visit Ziya Gokaslan, MD at Johns Hopkins University in Bethesda, MD, and K. Tomita, MD, PhD at the Kanazawa University in Japan. He selected Dr. Tomita and Dr. Gokaslan, both spinal tumor surgeons, as mentors because of their numerous innovations, publications and successes in obtaining peer reviewed funding in the field of spine tumor surgery. Both surgeons are engaged in the Spinal Tumor Study Group, a new global study group similar to the Spinal Deformity Study Group that uses a standardized data collection, retrieval and storage format that allows data from multiple centers to be collated to study surgical outcomes. Dr. Burch is coordinating a multi-center prospective trial under Dr. Gokaslan’s and Tomita’s mentorship to investigate the outcomes, survival, and complications of en bloc resection compared to piecemeal excision of spinal metastases using the Spinal Tumor Study Group data set.

Dr. Gill used his Traveling Fellowship opportunity to visit several institutions to learn various aspects of performing spine research as it relates to basic science, translational research, and clinical research. Dr. Gill’s first visit was to James D. Kang, MD at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pittsburgh, PA because of an interest in Dr. Kang’s research and experience in gene therapy for the treatment of intervertebral disc degeneration. Dr. Gill learned how Dr. Kang developed and has maintained a research laboratory with a busy clinical practice, and has established the support structures need to be in place to create a successful laboratory. In addition to visiting with Dr. Kang, Dr. Gill had the opportunity to meet with Gwendolyn Sowa, MD, PhD and Nam Vo, PhD, colleagues of Dr. Kang. Dr. Gill also had the opportunity to share his research interests with these individuals who in turn provided insight on how to become a successful clinician-scientist.

After leaving Pittsburgh, Dr. Gill traveled to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH to meet with James N. Weinstein, DO, MS. As a mentor, Dr. Weinstein helped teach Dr. Gill to learn how to perform clinical research trials and outcomes based research. At Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Drs. Dilip Sengupta, Jon Lurie, Joye DeLeo also met with Dr. Gill to share their research experiences. Since Dartmouth is the lead institution in the Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT), Dr. Gill had an in depth discussion on the infrastructure needed to complete this multi-center trial as well as how to design an outcomes trial of this magnitude.

For his final mentor visit, Dr. Gill traveled to Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, IL to meet with Howard An, MD and his colleagues. “The Traveling Fellowship Program has provided the opportunity for me to travel to various institutions to learn and observe how to set up a research program that otherwise would not have been able to be accomplished without this program,” Dr. Gill says.