Chathuraka Jayasuriya, PhD, received an Applied Research Award from the DoD PRORP program.
Chathuraka Jayasuriya, PhD, received an Applied Research Award from the US Department of Defense Office of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) Peer Reviewed Orthopaedic Research Program (PRORP) in February 2020.
Dr. Jayasuriya is a 2016 awardee of Advance-CTR's Pilot Projects Program.
The goal of this study is to develop a novel cell-mediated adjuvant therapy that can be used in conjunction with concurrent clinical meniscus suture repair techniques to achieve better healing efficacy in a large animal model.
This project is an extension of our Advance-CTR project, "Meniscal Repair Using a Novel Subset of Cartilage-Derived Human Stem Cells," that I collaborated on with Brett Owens, MD, now a co-investigator on the DoD award. I looked at cell-mediated repair of meniscus injuries using a rodent model.
“ The ability to perform this large animal study has been a dream of ours since we wrote up our initial Advance-CTR Pilot Project. ”
The ability to perform this large animal study has been a dream of ours since we wrote up our initial Advance-CTR Pilot Project. Our vision was (and still is) to use cell-therapies to promote better meniscal fibrocartilage repair in parts of the meniscus where healing is typically not observed.
Meniscus injuries are common in active adults, including military service personnel and young athletes. The ability to test our strategy in a large animal model will help us to better understand the capabilities of the cartilage-derived progenitor cells that we utilize to stimulate repair.
We anticipate that this study will fill current knowledge gaps about the efficacy of using cellular therapies in conjunction with traditional suture techniques to facilitate meniscus healing. The valuable data that we will gather from this large animal study will build justification and rationale to pursue a clinical trial aimed at improving the current quality of treatment for repairing isolated meniscus tears.
Further, the results of this study have the potential to not only impact a large segment of the population who are struggling with meniscus injuries, but have applications in areas from amateur and pro sports, to the military, to underserved communities who may be more vulnerable to multiple surgeries and recovery challenges to treat these injuries.
Chathuraka Jayasuriya, PhD
Contact PI
Assistant Professor of Orthopaedics (Research)
Rhode Island Hospital
Braden Fleming, PhD
Co-Investigator
Lucy Lippitt Professor of Orthopaedics
Professor of Engineering
Brown University Department of Orthopaedics and School of Engineering
Brett Owens, MD
Co-Investigator
Professor of Orthopaedics
Chief of Sports Medicine
Brown University Department of Orthopaedics
Miriam Hospital