Mock Willett Lab Research

Multi-tissue extremity injuries require multi-stage treatments that too often leave patients with lasting functional impairments, including long-term disabilities, pain, and neurologic dysfunction, and represent the predominant cause of combat casualties for U.S. armed forces members. While there is an abundance of single-tissue injury models and an increasing number of single-tissue interventions, previously there was no pre-clinical small animal models to test tissue-engineered interventions for the multiple tissues. To address this gap, our lab developed a multi-tissue injury model in the rat combining a segmental bone defect with an adjacent volumetric muscle defect, enabling quantitative assessment of multi-tissue recovery. Work in our lab now focuses on using this model to explore the mechanisms of interaction between bone and muscle during healing. We also work to develop novel tissue-engineered therapies, including new biomaterials, stem cells, and biologics, to improve both treatment and physical rehabilitation for these complex injuries.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a debilitating condition affecting all tissues of articular joints, for which current treatments including invasive surgical procedures or pharmacological pain relief are limited in effectiveness, and no disease-modifying OA drugs are currently FDA approved. Our lab is focused on better understanding the etiology of OA and developing novel strategies to prevent or mitigate its progression. This includes pursuing a range of regenerative approaches including microcarrier-based stem cell delivery, ECM-based therapeutics, and small molecule delivery, while also investigating the lymphatic system both as a driver of disease and as a potential therapeutic target. Our work that spans tissue culture models, pre-clinical translational models, and clinical trials.

Bone is a dynamic and constantly remodels in response to mechanical demands, yet the precise mechanisms governing skeletal regeneration remain poorly understood, largely due to limitations in longitudinally assessing the local mechanical environment in vivo. Building on our segmental bone defect model, which isolates the role of mechanical signals in regeneration, we are leveraging recent advances in biocompatible microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology to monitor loads on regenerating tissue in vivo with unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution.