Cora Ferguson, a bioengineering PhD candidate in the Willett and Lindberg labs, has been awarded an International Foundation for Ethical Research (IFER) Fellowship to support her graduate work. IFER promotes the development, validation, and implementation of scientific methods that advance research while reducing or replacing the use of animals in science. 

Ferguson’s research focuses on engineering cartilage microphysiological systems, often called organoids, to study how hormonal signaling influences cartilage integrity and susceptibility to degeneration. The long-term goal of her work is to identify patient-specific factors that contribute to osteoarthritis risk by developing a human-relevant platform that makes it easier to evaluate potential treatments in the lab before they are used in patients.

A key aspect of Ferguson’s research is her close collaboration with the Slocum Research & Education Foundation at Slocum Orthopedics, a local orthopedic clinic, where she works with clinicians to obtain patient-derived samples. These samples enable her to capture biological variability across individuals and incorporate it directly into her engineered tissue models, strengthening the translational relevance of her work. 

"Our collaboration with Slocum has allowed me to sit at the patient, physician, and scientist interface and showed me how clinicians identify clinical needs and how we can use science to address those clinical needs more directly."

The IFER Fellowship will support Ferguson’s research for up to three years.