News
May 28, 2024
Congrats to Erick Buko and co-authors on our lab's newly published study on changes in the femoral neck following ischemic injury to the femoral head. This study demonstrates disruption of new bone formation in the femoral neck (i.e., the metaphyseal spongiosa) and the sensitivity of quantitative MRI relaxation time mapping methods to detect this injury. This work provides important insight into the pathogenesis of Legg-Calve-Perthes disease (a pediatric hip disorder) and highlights the potential use of quantitative MRI to evaluate these changes in children.
Buko EO, Armstrong AR, Laine JC, Toth F, Johnson CP. J Orthop Res 2024 (epub).
May 8, 2024
It is a busy time in the lab:
1) Erick, Suhail, and Casey presented abstracts this week at the ISMRM annual meeting in Singapore. There was a lot of interest in our work to image ischemia and injury to bone marrow using quantitative MRI techniques, including relaxation time mapping and intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) diffusion weighted imaging, as well as to denoise our quantitative MRI maps using the TNORDIC method. Congrats to all on a strong showing at the conference.
2) A big thank you to Doug, Kim, Jenn, and Scott for their contributions to the lab over the past year or two. All four will be leaving the lab to continue to pursue their veterinary careers. Doug, Kim, and Scott will be graduating this Saturday, along with former lab member Diana Pendleton, and each will be doing a small animal rotating internship this next year as they pursue specialty training. Jenn will be focusing on her clinical rotations in her 4th year of veterinary school. We wish them all the best!
3) Ashton and Nicole will continue their research in the lab full time starting on Monday as Veterinary Summer Scholars. Each will conduct research lab in the lab for 12 weeks. We are very excited to have them in the lab for the next few months. They will be working to advance our NIH R01 project focused on MRI evaluation of osteonecrosis of the femoral head.
March 4, 2024
Ashton Amann and Nicole Nelson will be continuing their work in the lab this summer as Veterinary Summer Scholars! This program provides a 12 week research training experience that culminates in a national veterinary scholars symposium. Ashton will be joining for his second summer to continue his research into imaging bone repair following its ischemic injury. Nicole will be investigating imaging and histological measures of the disruption of femoral neck growth as a result of ischemic injury. Congrats to both on being selected for this competitive program!
February 14, 2024
We are pleased to welcome Qian to the lab! Qian is a 3rd year DVM student who is pursuing a career in academic radiology. She will be conducting research to evaluate quantitative MRI methods to inform the health of the intervertebral discs and spinal cord in dogs with intervertebral disc disease.
February 9, 2024
Welcome, Scott! Scott Novom is a 4th year DVM/MPH student, and he is joining the lab to gain experience in medical imaging research and to help inform his MPH project. He will be working to analyze quantitative MRI data for our R01 project on Legg-Calve-Perthes disease. We are thrilled to have him as part of the team for the remainder of his DVM/MPH training!
February 8, 2024
The lab had a strong showing this past week at the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) annual meeting in Long Beach, CA. Congrats to Erick Buko and Ashton Amann for giving excellent podium presentations on their research into advanced MRI techniques to improve imaging of patients of Legg-Calve-Perthes disease and other forms of osteonecrosis. Erick presented his latest results evaluating IVIM as a non-invasive method to simultaneously detect femoral head ischemia and injury, and Ashton presented preliminary findings of the sensitivity of relaxation time mapping techniques to detect reparative changes in the injured femoral head. The lab also presented posters on detection of injury to the metaphysis (i.e., femoral neck) following femoral head ischemia and canine intervertebral disc degeneration using quantitative MRI techniques.
January 26, 2024
The lab has four scientific abstracts accepted for presentation at the 2024 annual meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), which will be held in Singapore in May. Erick, Suhail, and Casey will be presenting our latest results for our osteonecrosis project. Congrats to all!
January 16, 2024
We are pleased to welcome Jenn Novak to the lab! Jenn is a 3rd year DVM student who is interested in pursuing a career in radiology. She will be working on our osteonecrosis project to help characterize the reliability of our quantitative MRI techniques and factors that can contribute to variability in normal development.
December 20, 2023
Thank you to the Research Office in the College of Veterinary Medicine for highlighting our recent work on Legg-Calve-Perthes disease!
November 16, 2023
We have a new lab publication on a potential alternative method ("IVIM") to gadolinium contrast-enhanced MRI to detect bone perfusion and ischemia. The IVIM method uses diffusion-weighted imaging to detect blood flow in capillary beds. Our study of IVIM in a piglet model of Perthes disease, for which we have one femoral head with no blood flow (i.e., ischemia) and a normal contralateral femoral head with blood flow, provided a key validation of the potential utility of this technique. This method may provide a way to evaluate bone perfusion in children with Perthes disease without the need for gadolinium contrast agents, which would open new possibilities for advancing research and clinical management of Perthes disease. Congratulations to all of the authors, particularly first-author Erick Buko, who led the data analysis and manuscript drafting.
Buko EO, Bhave S, Moeller S, Laine JC, Toth F, Johnson CP. J Orthop Res 2023 (epub).
In a collaborative project led by Ferenc Toth, we also published a second article (the same day!) in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research that uses quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) to depict the blood vessels in the growth cartilage of the distal humerus (elbow) of piglets. This work demonstrates regions of the growth cartilage that have reduced vascular supply, which correspond to sites that osteochondritis dissecans (OCD) lesions tend to develop. This provides further evidence that the development of OCD lesions in the elbow may be due to similar causes as been previously shown in the knee. Congrats to everyone on this work!
Toth F, Nissi MJ, Armstrong AR, Buko EO, Johnson CP. J Orthop Res 2023 (epub).
November 8, 2023
We are looking forward to sharing our latest results at the 2024 annual meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society! The lab has four scientific abstracts accepted to the meeting: Erick Buko will give both a podium and a poster presentation; Ashton Amann will give a podium presentation; and Casey Johnson will give a poster presentation. Furthermore, our collaborators Ferenc Toth, Arin Ellingson, and Liz Bradley also will give poster presentations. Congrats to everyone!
November 1, 2023
Casey Johnson was profiled in this news article from the CVM Research Office. A big thanks to Jessica Knight for putting this together!
October 26, 2023
We are pleased to welcome Nicole Nelson to the lab! Nicole is a 2nd year DVM student who is interested in pursuing a career in radiology. She will be helping with data analyses for our Legg-Calve-Perthes disease and canine intervertebral disc disease projects.
September 26, 2023
Erick Buko presented his latest research at the annual conference of the University of Minnesota Institute for Engineering in Medicine. He showcased his latest results supporting that an MRI technique called IVIM can detect bone ischemia without use of a contrast agent.
September 12, 2023
A huge congratulations to our collaborator Alex Armstrong on being awarded an NIH K01 Mentored Research Scientist Career Development Award! Over the next 5 years, Alex will be working to advance her skills and independent research in the area of developmental joint disorders. Her K01 research project will build off of the collaborative work we have been pursuing on Legg-Calve-Perthes disease. We are very excited to support Alex in her efforts and continue to advance our collaborative research for many years to come!
August 30, 2023
Congrats to our collaborator Laura Stone on receiving an NIH R21 research grant to study the role of vitamin C in intervertebral disc disease and back pain! Our lab will be assisting with spine imaging for the project.
Congrats as well to our collaborators Mary Foltz and Arin Ellingson on their recent publication evaluating MRI metrics of the spine and intervertebral discs in patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis:
Foltz MH, Johnson CP, Truong W, Polly DW Jr, Ellingson AM. Spine J 2023; S1529-9430(23)03350-8.
August 8, 2023
Alaina and Ashton presented their summer research at the Veterinary Scholars Symposium in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Alaina identified relationships between quantitative MRI measures and intervertebral disc health in dogs. Ashton found quantitative MRI measures are sensitive in detecting reparative changes to the femoral head after its ischemic injury. They both did exceptional work in the lab this summer, and we are excited that they will be continuing to advance their projects for the rest of the summer and into the school year. Alaina will be starting her 3rd year of veterinary school, and Ashton will be starting his first year of a combined DVM/PhD program.
Ashton was featured in the following article about the summer program:
July 28, 2023
Our collaboration with Drs. Jennifer Laine and Susan Novotny at Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare to work toward new imaging solutions for Legg-Calve-Perthes disease was recently highlighted in Gillette's Partners in Care publication. You can read the story here.
June 9, 2023
Casey Johnson was awarded an internal grant from the College of Veterinary Medicine to use quantitative MRI techniques to assess changes to the intervertebral disc, vertebrae, and spinal cord of dogs with suspected lumbar disc herniation undergoing a clinical MRI exam at our Veterinary Medical Center. This work will help address a need for new, noninvasive tools to evaluate health of the spine and predict risk of future injury.
June 3, 2023
Erick Buko is representing the lab and presenting his research at the world's premiere MRI conference (ISMRM) in Toronto, Canada this week. Erick's work is investigating the use of quantitative MRI techniques to evaluate ischemic injury to bone, with application to Legg-Calve-Perthes disease and osteonecrosis.
May 8, 2023
Welcome to the lab, Kim! Kimberly Alexander is a 4th year DVM student with an interest in radiology. She will be working on our project to develop new methods to noninvasively assess intervertebral disc disease in canine patients.
March 4, 2023
Congratulations to Alaina Falck (2nd year DVM student) and Ashton Amann (incoming DVM/PhD student) for being selected for the 2023 Veterinary Summer Scholars program! Both will conduct research in the lab over a 10-week period this summer and then have the opportunity to present their findings at the National Veterinary Scholars Symposium in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Alaina will continue her work on MRI of canine intervertebral disc health, and Ashton will complete a PhD rotation in the lab focused on validation of MRI measures of femoral head ischemic injury.
March 1, 2023
Casey Johnson was awarded a five-year, $2.7M NIH R01 grant to advance quantitative MRI methods to non-invasively assess ischemic injury and repair to the femoral head. This collaborative and interdisciplinary project includes investigators in the Departments of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, Orthopedic Surgery, and Radiology at the University of Minnesota as well as investigators at Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare. Details of the award can be found here.
February 21, 2023
We are pleased to welcome Olivia Kim to the lab! Olivia is a 2nd year DVM student and is particularly interested in radiology and machine learning. She will be working on evaluating imaging data for our canine intervertebral disc degeneration project, with the goal to develop more streamlined ways to apply advanced, quantitative imaging techniques to assess disc health in a clinical setting.
February 15, 2023
Our lab had a solid representation at the 2023 Orthopaedic Research Society meeting in Dallas, Texas over the past five days. Erick Buko presented both a talk and a poster on femoral head perfusion/diffusion as a New Investigator Research Award finalist. Casey Johnson presented a talk on canine intervertebral disc degeneration and a poster on relaxation time mapping of femoral head ischemia. And our collaborator Ferenc Toth presented a poster on the progression of osteochondrosis lesions. It was also great to reconnect with colleagues, catch up on the latest research in the field, and establish some new relationships and opportunities for collaboration. Well done, everyone!
February 3, 2023
Congrats to Erick Buko and our collaborator Steen Moeller on having their scientific abstracts accepted for presentation at the annual meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM)! The meeting will be held in Toronto, Canada, in June. Erick will be presenting some of our lab's latest work to do 3D quantitative imaging of the femoral head ischemia, and Steen will be presenting a new technique to remove noise from the quantitative images we are acquiring for our projects on Legg-Calve-Perthes disease and osteochondritis dissecans. Collectively, these works advance our ability to use quantitative imaging techniques to assess ischemic joint disorders.
February 2, 2023
Congratulations to Alex Armstrong on the publication of her manuscript demonstrating changes to the growth plate as early as 48 hours after onset of ischemia in the femoral head. This work sheds light on the pathogenesis of growth disturbances that may be experienced by children with Legg-Calve-Perthes disease:
Armstrong AR, Tóth F, Carlson CS, Kim HKW, Johnson CP. Osteoarthritis Cartilage 2023.
Congrats as well to our collaborators Stefan Zbyn, Jutta Ellermann, and Liz Bradley on their respective labs' recent publications on quantitative diffusion imaging in patients with knee OCD and the role of macrophages in intervertebral disc degeneration:
Koroth J, Buko EO, Abbott R, Johnson CP, Ogle BM, Stone LS, Ellingson AM, Bradley EW. Int J Mol Sci 2023; 24(2):1367.
Zbýň Š, Kajabi AW, Nouraee CM, Ludwig KD, Johnson CP, Tompkins MA, Nelson BJ, Zhang L, Moeller S, Marette S, Metzger GJ, Carlson CS, Ellermann JM. J Orthop Res 2022.
January 17, 2023
Welcome, Suhail! We are pleased to welcome Suhail Parvaze Pathan, PhD, to the lab as a postdoctoral associate. Suhail will be working on image reconstruction and analysis techniques to allow for more efficient scanning of and extraction of information from our quantitative MRI techniques.
November 11, 2022
We are excited to present our research at the 2023 Orthopaedic Research Society meeting this February in Dallas, Texas! And a big congratulations to Erick Buko for being selected as a finalist for the meeting's New Investigator Research Award! The lab has three accepted abstracts: Erick Buko will be presenting work on using IVIM as a non-contrast-enhanced means to assess femoral head ischemia, and Casey Johnson will be presenting work on using quantitative MRI methods to assess intervertebral disc degeneration and femoral head ischemia. Our lab also co-authored a fourth abstract studying naturally-occurring osteochondrosis lesions in pigs that will be presented by our collaborator Ferenc Toth.
November 7, 2022
Casey Johnson presented initial results for our new research project on canine intervertebral disc degeneration at the Philadelphia Spine Research Society (PSRS) meeting in Skytop, Pennsylvania.
November 4, 2022
After much anticipation, our college's new state-of-the-art Siemens Prisma 3T MRI scanner is open for research! Details of the new system can be found on the new CVM MRI Research User Resources website (click here).
September 14, 2022
Congratulations to Erick Buko for receiving a poster award at the Mayo Clinic and UMN T32 Musculoskeletal Research Symposium held today in Rochester, MN! He presented his work examining a non-contrast-enhanced MRI technique (IVIM) to assess bone perfusion.
September 12, 2022
We are thrilled that Alaina Falck (2022 Veterinary Summer Scholar) has agreed to continue her research in the lab as a veterinary student researcher as she enters her 2nd year of vet school! Alaina will be helping push forward our canine intervertebral disc project.
August 25, 2022
Congratulations to Godson Aryee on successfully completing his Master's of Science degree in Animal Science! Godson completed his master's research project in the lab, which focused on assessing the effects of post-mortem delay on histological measurements of cell viability in the femoral head. This work is relevant to our ongoing efforts to characterize MRI techniques that are sensitive to ischemic injury and repair to the developing hip. We wish Godson the best as he moves on to his next phase of research training!
August 16, 2022
Casey Johnson and colleagues had an abstract accepted to present at the ORS-PSRS 6th International Spine Research Symposium, which will be held in Skytop, PA in November. The abstract describes preliminary results investigating the use of quantitative MRI as a non-invasive means to assess intervertebral disc degeneration in dogs. This work may ultimately help lead to improved clinical management of veterinary patients with intervertebral disc degeneration and the ability to trial new treatments to benefit both humans and their canine companions.
August 10, 2022
Congrats to Diana Pendleton and Alaina Falck on a very productive summer in the lab as Veterinary Summer Scholars! Diana and Alaina presented their work this past week at the National Veterinary Scholars Symposium, which was hosted this year at the University of Minnesota. Diana collected and analyzed biochemical assay data on canine and ovine intervertebral discs to study the relationship between MRI and biochemical measures of disc composition. Alaina analyzed data from our latest piglet model studies of ischemic osteonecrosis / Legg-Calve-Perthes disease to evaluate the repeatability of our MRI measures and their sensitivity to very acute effects of ischemia on the hip joint. Thank you both for your dedication to your projects and being wonderful people to work with this summer!
June 8, 2022
Congratulations to Alex Armstrong on successfully defending her PhD thesis entitled "One Medicine – One Pathology: Assessment and Validation of Animal Models of Orthopaedic Diseases." Alex will be joining the faculty of the Veterinary Clinical Sciences department as an Assistant Professor in July. We are excited to continue our collaborative research efforts with Alex to advance understanding and ultimately clinical management and treatment of osteochondritis dissecans, Legg-Calve-Perthes disease, and intervertebral disc disease.
June 3, 2022
Congrats to Alex Armstrong and the rest of our team on the publication of our lab's most recent work showing T2 and T1ρ mapping are sensitive in detecting ischemic injury to the growth cartilage of the femoral head under in vivo conditions. This study corroborates our prior ex vivo findings and leads to new questions about the role of the growth cartilage in the pathogenesis of Legg-Calve-Perthes disease.
Armstrong AR, Bhave S, Buko EO, Chase KL, Tóth F, Carlson CS, Ellermann JM, Kim HKW, Johnson CP. Osteoarthritis Cartilage 2022.
May 16, 2022
It is a dynamic, exciting, and busy time in the lab. Erick Buko and Casey Johnson were at the ISMRM annual meeting in London last week, where they presented their latest work on quantitative MRI methods to assess ischemic injury to the femoral head. This was the first ISMRM meeting held in person since 2019, and it was great to be back with colleagues and friends. Today, Diana Pendleton and Alaina Falck started their VSS projects in the lab, and Doug Albrecht and Godson Aryee will start pursuing their research projects full time. They, along with Erick and Casey, will be collectively working to push forward our projects on osteonecrosis and intervertebral disc degeneration. We are also pleased to announce that the College of Veterinary Medicine is finishing installing a new, state-of-the-art Siemens Prisma 3T MRI scanner in the Veterinary Medical Center, which will greatly expand our lab's ability to conduct basic, preclinical, and clinical research. New projects are beginning to emerge that will take advantage of this new signature equipment, which heralds a new era for medical imaging-based research in the college. We are looking forward to a very productive and fruitful summer 2022!
March 3, 2022
We are excited to announce that Diana Pendleton and Alaina Falck will be joining the lab as 2022 Veterinary Summer Scholars! Diana will be helping to advance our work on using MRI to assess canine intervertebral disc degeneration, and Alaina will be working on our efforts to study ischemic injury to bone and cartilage of the hip joint. Diana and Alaina will be in the lab for 12 weeks from May to August. Congrats to both!
March 2, 2022
Congrats to Erick Buko, who was awarded a 2022 ISMRM Educational Stipend to present his research at the society's annual meeting in London, England in May!
February 10, 2022
We are pleased to welcome Doug Albrecht to the lab! Doug is a 2nd year veterinary student with an interest in radiology. He will be assisting with our research studies involving MRI of injury to the epiphyseal cartilage of the developing joint, with application to Legg-Calve-Perthes disease (LCPD) and osteochondritis dissecans (OCD), two disorders that affect both animals and humans.
February 9, 2022
The lab had a strong showing at the ORS annual meeting in Tampa! We enjoyed being back to an in person meeting, and we presented three posters on our work. Casey Johnson also received the 2022 JOR Early Career Award.
February 4, 2022
Congrats to Erick Buko on having two abstracts accepted for presentation at the 2022 ISMRM annual meeting in London! He will be presenting on findings from piglet model studies demonstrating (1) the use of IVIM as a non-contrast-enhanced method to detect femoral head ischemia and (2) changes to the metaphysis as a result of ischemic injury to the epiphysis. These results are relevant to Legg-Calve-Perthes disease, a juvenile form of osteonecrosis of the femoral head.
January 19, 2022
We are pleased to welcome Godson Aryee to the lab! Godson is a master's student in the Animal Science graduate program. He will be conducting his master's research project in the lab focused on evaluating MRI and histological methods to assess cell viability in the femoral head with application to osteonecrosis.
November 10, 2021
Congratulations to Erick Buko on acceptance of his abstract to the 2022 Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) annual meeting in Tampa, Florida! Erick will be presenting on his work to characterize MRI relaxation times in a piglet model of Legg-Calve-Perthes disease.
Congrats as well to Alex Armstrong on her accepted abstract! She will be presenting on histological evidence of early ischemic injury to the growth plate in the piglet model.
October 22, 2021
Congrats to our collaborators Stefan Zbyn and Jutta Ellermann on their recent publication characterizing T2* relaxation times of lesions in the knee in pediatric patients with osteochondritis dissecans:
Zbýň Š, et al. Compositional evaluation of lesion and parent bone in patients with juvenile osteochondritis dissecans of the knee using T2 * mapping. J Orthop Res 2021 [PubMed]
September 30, 2021
Our collaborative team has been awarded two NIH R56 grants from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) to further advance our studies of ischemic joint disorders:
Casey Johnson and colleagues were awarded an R56 to further advance our studies of quantitative MRI techniques to detect and monitor osteonecrosis of the femoral head.
Ferenc Toth and colleagues were awarded an R56 to investigate critical factors in the development of lesions of osteochondritis dissecans, including evaluation of lesions using advanced MRI techniques.
September 27, 2021
Erick Buko presented his work on relaxation time mapping of a piglet model of ischemic osteonecrosis of the femoral head at the annual conference of the University of Minnesota Institute for Engineering in Medicine.
August 26, 2021
We thank Kayla Chase for another productive summer in the lab! Kayla completed a 12-week research project focused on biochemical, histological, and biomechanical analysis of canine invertebral discs. Her work culminated in a poster presentation at the National Veterinary Scholars Symposium, and her contributions were critical to moving this nascent project forward. She will also be presenting her research at the College of Veterinary Medicine Points of Pride Research Day in October. We wish Kayla the best as she begins her 3rd year of veterinary school!
July 20, 2021
Congrats to collaborators Gus Fedje-Johnston and Marc Tompkins on their recent publication exploring MRI and histology of a goat model of meniscal healing.
Fedje-Johnston W, et al. A pilot study to assess the healing of meniscal tears in young adult goats. Sci Rep 2021; 11(1):14181. [PubMed]
June 4, 2021
Casey Johnson and colleagues were awarded a College of Veterinary Medicine signature grant to investigate quantitative MRI measures of canine intervertebral disc degeneration. This work will inform the potential clinical use of quantitative MRI techniques to noninvasively assess injury to the spine in dogs. This work is also potentially relevant to humans as dogs are a comparative model of degenerative disc disease. Co-investigators on the grant are Susan Arnold, Arin Ellingson, Cathy Carlson, Elizabeth Bradley, and Christopher Ober.
May 17, 2021
We are pleased to welcome Kayla Chase back to the lab as a Veterinary Summer Scholar! Kayla will be entering her third year of veterinary school this fall. Over the summer, she will be conducting research in the lab to develop noninvasive, quantitative MRI measures of spine health in dogs with intervertebral disc disease (IVDD).
April 1, 2021
We have published a journal article demonstrating that T1rho and T2 mapping (two quantitative MRI techniques) are sensitive in detecting injury to the developing femoral head 48 hours after onset of ischemia. This work, which was conducted ex vivo at 9.4T using a porcine model of osteonecrosis / Legg-Calve-Perthes disease, reproduces and expands upon findings of our initial report. These methods may help detect and inform treatment of early-stage osteonecrosis of the femoral head, Legg-Calve-Perthes disease, and other ischemic bone and joint disorders.
Johnson CP, et al. T1ρ and T2 mapping detect acute ischemic injury in a piglet model of Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease. J Orthop Res 2021. [PubMed]
February 26, 2021
We will be presenting our latest work on quantitative MRI methods to detect early-stage ischemic injury to the femoral head at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM). We will be reporting preliminary findings suggesting that techniques called adiabatic T1rho and adiabatic T2rho may provide complementary information to help assess ischemic injury to the bone marrow, bone, and epiphyseal cartilage.
And congrats to our colleagues in the Ellermann lab (Stefan Zbyn and Abdul Wahed Kajabi) for acceptance of their abstracts for presentation at the ISMRM meeting focused on T2* mapping and diffusion-weighted imaging to better characterize (and potentially predict the stability of) lesions in the knees of children with osteochondritis dissecans (OCD).
January 4, 2021
We are pleased to welcome Erick Buko to the lab! Erick recently completed his PhD in Physics from the University of Houston, where his research focused on techniques for perfusion/diffusion imaging. As a postdoctoral associate in the lab, Erick will be instrumental in pushing forward our research on osteonecrosis, degenerative disc disease, and other collaborative projects.
December 19, 2020
Congrats to collaborators Zhirui Jiang and Lachlan Smith at UPenn on publication of their work to characterize early changes in the development of vertebrae in a canine model of mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS) VII.
Jiang Z, et al. Epiphyseal cartilage canal architecture and extracellular matrix remodeling in mucopolysaccharidosis VII dogs at the onset of postnatal growth. Connect Tissue Res 2020. [PubMed]
November 18, 2020
We will be presenting our work on using quantitative MRI techniques to assess ischemic injury to the growth cartilage of the femoral head at the annual meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society in February 2021. This work is clinically relevant to Legg-Calve-Perthes disease, a developmental hip disorder that affects children and dogs.
Congrats to our collaborators Mary Foltz and Arin Ellingson for also having their work accepted for presentation at the ORS annual meeting, which focuses on characterizing changes to intervertebral disc following surgical treatment of idiopathic scoliosis in adolescents. And congrats to collaborators Stefan Zbyn and Jutta Ellermann, who will also be presenting work at ORS on characterization of T2* relaxation times in children and adolescents with juvenile osteochondritis dissecans.
October 5, 2020
Congratulations to Kayla Chase for having her abstract based on her summer research project accepted for presentation at the annual meeting of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists!
July 10, 2020
We wish Sampada the best as she concludes her time in the lab to pursue a great opportunity to further advance her career at Canon Medical Research USA. We thank Sampada for her productivity, enthusiasm, and positivity during her short time here, particularly given the need to work entirely remotely due to COVID-19. You will be missed!
June 29, 2020
Casey Johnson was awarded a University of Minnesota OVPR Research Infrastructure Investment Program grant to support the purchase of a high-end research 3T MRI scanner at the College of Veterinary Medicine. This signature equipment will help foster inter-collegiate collaboration to advance translational and comparative medicine research to benefit both human and animal health. Descriptions of the 2020 awards can be found here.
June 5, 2020
Congrats to collaborators Mary Foltz and Arin Ellingson on their publication supporting that T2* relaxation times of the intervertebral discs, which provide a measure of disc health, can be quantified in the presence of metal instrumentation used for spine fusion:
Foltz MH, et al. Quantifying the effect of posterior spinal instrumentation on the MRI signal of adjacent intervertebral discs. Spine Deform 2020. [PubMed]
May 11, 2020
Welcome, Kayla! Kayla Chase is currently a DVM student at the UMN and joins the lab as a Veterinary Summer Scholar. Over the course of the summer, she will be working on analysis of MRI techniques to detect ischemic injury to the femoral head.
March 9, 2020
Welcome, Sampada! Sampada Bhave, PhD, joins the lab as a postdoctoral associate focused on MRI data acquisition, reconstruction, and analysis following her graduate training at the University of Iowa and an initial post-graduate training at Medical College of Wisconsin.
February 12, 2020
We published a journal article describing a new technique called "tailored variable flip angle scheduling" that can improve the efficiency of quantitative relaxation time mapping for certain applications.
Johnson CP, et al. Three-Dimensional GRE T1ρ mapping of the brain using tailored variable flip-angle scheduling. Magn Reson Med 2020. [PubMed]
February 1, 2020
Congrats to collaborators Nana Owusu and Vince Magnotta (University of Iowa) on their publication demonstrating the sensitivity of T1ρ to changes in pH at clinical 3T MRI.
Owusu N, et al. R1ρ sensitivity to pH and other compounds at clinically accessible spin-lock fields in the presence of proteins. NMR Biomed 2020; 33(2):e4217. [PubMed]
January 31, 2020
Congrats to collaborators Xiufeng Li (CMRR) and Jutta Ellermann (CMRR) on their respective publications demonstrating (i) bone perfusion imaging using arterial spin labeling (ASL) at high-field 3T and ultrahigh-field 7T MRI and (ii) characterization of the vascular supply of the distal femoral epiphyseal cartilage in human cadaveric specimens at 10.5T MRI:
Li X, et al. 7T bone perfusion imaging of the knee using arterial spin labeling MRI. Magn Reson Med 2020; 83(5):1577-1586. [PubMed]
Li X, et al. Measuring knee bone marrow perfusion using arterial spine labeling at 3T. Sci Rep 2020; 10(1):5260. [PubMed]
Ellermann JM, et al. Three-dimensional quantitative magnetic resonance imaging of epiphyseal cartilage vascularity using vessel image features: new insights into juvenile osteochondritis dissecans. JB JS Open Access 2019; 4(4): e0031.1-9. [PubMed]
October 1, 2019
Casey Johnson was awarded a grant from the University of Minnesota Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) to advance magnetic resonance imaging of osteonecrosis of the femoral head.
September 7, 2019
We're online! Please check back for updates on publications, grants, and other lab activities and achievements.