The Kremen Lab

It has been estimated that there are 32 million musculoskeletal injuries in the United States annually, of which 45% involve tendons or ligaments. These injuries including common problems such as rotator cuff tendon tear repairs are often treated surgically. Unfortunately, on average 12% to 40% of rotator cuff repairs will fail to heal, and those outcomes only become worse when rotator cuff tears are large in size or affect patients who are greater than 60 years of age. Both of these features are commonly encountered clinically. A critical feature related to the current high rate of observed tendon repair failures is poor soft tissue-to-bone healing.

As a result of our interest in improving the treatment of these soft tissue musculoskeletal injuries, our research focuses on improving tendon and ligament reconstruction procedures, novel growth factor delivery strategies, biomimetic scaffolds as well as innovative mesenchymal progenitor cell imaging and therapeutic approaches. Finally, recognizing the significant downstream effects that orthopaedic injuries can have on patients trying to remain healthy and active we also investigate biologic-based therapeutic interventions aimed at treating the sequelae of these injuries such as post-traumatic osteoarthritis after anterior cruciate ligament injury. Read the study on ClinicalTrials.gov(Link is external)

Dr. Kremen and his colleagues have published their work in high impact journals such as Science Translational Medicine, Molecular Therapy and in high impact orthopaedic journals such as American Journal of Sports Medicine. The robust research environment at UCLA provides ample opportunity for collaboration and the development of a strong and innovative translational research program. This research environment as well as the numerous talented undergraduate and graduate scholars enrolled at UCLA make UCLA a special place to explore our goals of addressing unmet clinical needs in musculoskeletal medicine.