Orthopedic surgeon Darren Johnson, MD, is collaborating with researchers at the University of Kentucky in Lexington to study anterior cruciate ligament injuries.
Dr. Johnson and the team at the UK College of Health Sciences Biomotion Lab are working on three National Institutes of Health grants totaling more than $8 million, the university said Jan. 5. Their research aims to better understand how movement and muscle dysfunction affect pain and function in injured orthopedic patients.
Part of the research process involves taking muscle samples from Dr. Johnson's operating room to the lab.
"Everybody in the country knows what an ACL is," Dr. Johnson said in a statement. "It is the most commonly injured knee ligament that we operate on. Do patients return to sport? Yes. However, I had a patient [recently] — a family with three daughters, and I did the fifth ACL reconstruction. That tells you we don’t have it solved."