Bethel Musculoskeletal Research Center

02/18/2026

Up to $30,000 for Early-Career Scientists!

The ORS and the Orland Bethel Musculoskeletal Research Center (BMRC) are partnering again to support early-career scientists. The BMRC/ORS Fellowship funds research to drive innovative treatments for diseases, aiming to empower early-career scientists by helping them generate critical preliminary data for larger grants.

Learn more and apply: https://www.ors.org/orsbethel-fellowship-grant/

01/21/2026

We are proud to share a transformational milestone for the Orland Bethel Family Musculoskeletal Research Center (BMRC) this morning.

The Orland Bethel Family Foundation has committed an additional $53.5 million to expand the BMRC - bringing the Bethel family’s support of Pitt’s musculoskeletal research enterprise to nearly $100 million over the last five years.

This strategic investment will accelerate innovation across the BMRC. It will establish three endowed professorships, support mid-career investigators through the new Bethel Prize, expand the BMRC Biobank, strengthen executive leadership, and launch new commercialization and innovation programs to connect research with industry and venture capital.

The gift also advances our mission to translate science into real-world impact - supporting personalized medicine and the next generation of musculoskeletal research leaders.

We are deeply grateful to Orland Bethel and the Bethel Family Foundation for their visionary partnership and continued belief in the future of musculoskeletal research at Pitt and UPMC.

More information on this transformative gift here: https://www.pittwire.pitt.edu/features-articles/2026/01/21/bethel-family-musculoskeletal-research-center-gift

The gift will advance the research, innovation and training efforts of a center that is already at the forefront of discovery.

01/20/2026

Hot off the presses - new research review from our Ferguson Spine Lab, this time published in the journal "biomolecules".

Low back pain ranks among the leading causes of global disability, with intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) recognized as a principal pathological driver. This review summarizes current knowledge on lactate production, transport, and clearance in the intervertebral disc, as well as emerging evidence for the roles of lactate in disc health and pathophysiology. In addition, future directions aimed at advancing our understanding of lactate biology and evaluating its potential as a therapeutic target for intervertebral disc degeneration are outlined.

https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/16/1/170

The intervertebral disc (IVD) is the largest avascular structure in the human body, and its nucleus pulposus (NP) cells predominantly generate large amounts of lactate through glycolysis, accompanied by an acidic microenvironment—features that represent characteristic metabolic traits of disc cell...

01/06/2026

Our Musculoskeletal Oncology Lab (MOL) ended the year strong by achieving some big milestones!

Starting off, the MOL was awarded a Community Resource Development Award from the DoD Rare Cancers Research Program - the largest award offered through this program. This support will significantly advance the MOL's work and collaborative efforts in rare cancer research.

Next up, they had a historic presence at the Musculoskeletal Tumor Society (MSTS) Annual Meeting in Mexico City. The lab delivered four podium presentations, presented by three medical students and one resident, marking a record achievement for our group. MOL Director Dr. Kurt Weiss also had the opportunity to serve as faculty and speaker at the first-ever MSTS grant writing workshop and to moderate the basic science section of the meeting.

Finally, we are excited to announce that the Musculoskeletal Oncology Lab will be relocating to the BST at the end of January - joining us in our newly renovated space.

Congratulations to our MOL team and we are excited to see what 2026 brings!

12/17/2025

We’re excited to share a breakthrough in musculoskeletal injury prevention from our BMRC Core Lab researchers in our MechanoBiology Laboratory.

Our MBL lab, directed by Dr. James H-C. Wang, has demonstrated that a topically applied metformin lotion can prevent the onset of tendinopathy in a mechanically overloaded mouse model. This reveals a promising, non-invasive strategy to reduce overuse tendon injuries that commonly affect athletes, workers, and military personnel.

Because metformin is already FDA-approved for other uses, this innovative approach has strong potential for rapid translation toward human studies and real-world application.

Read more about this promising research and its implications:
https://mtec-sc.org/technology-showcase/topical-metformin-lotion-for-tendinopathy-prevention



Department of Orthopaedics - University of Pitt
University of Pittsburgh

12/09/2025

These -80C freezers are incredibly important to the work our labs do day-in and day- out as they hold samples, cells and in-progress experiments.

We thank Maroadi Transfer & Storage Inc., Relocation Specialists for their care and diligence in moving these pieces of vital equipment across Pittsburgh to our new home. They are quite heavy and are challenging to move safely!

12/08/2025

Great look at the $20M, 5-year-grant that our BMRC Ferguson Lab is a part of! Interdisciplinary science is the future!

The award will allow the team to continue following individuals longitudinally for five more years to seek further understanding of the relationship of low back pain to other chronic pain and musculoskeletal conditions.

12/05/2025

It's the end of an era folks! We're cleaning up and shipping out of our labs at the Riveria building this week and we'd be lying if we said it wasn't a little bittersweet. We made some good memories in this space and we were thankful for the opportunity it gave us to come together for the first time as a cohesive team.

More updates to come next week! Have a great weekend!

12/03/2025

Sending congratulations to our Executive Director, Dr. Joon Y. Lee, on his appointment as Division Chief!

Joon Y. Lee, MD Named Chief of the Division of Spinal Surgery

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Joon Y. Lee has been appointed Chief of the Division of Spinal Surgery for the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Department of Orthopaedic Surgery.

Read more on our OrthoNet website here: https://www.orthonet.pitt.edu/news/joon-y-lee-md-named-chief-division-spinal-surgery

12/01/2025

ATTENTION: THIS IS NOT A DRILL. IT'S HAPPENING!

Today marks the first day of the two-week moving process for our BMRC core labs. We are finally moving into our renovated forever home in the Thomas E. Starzl Biomedical Science Tower. The packing has begun, and we couldn't be more excited. We hope the snow holds off tomorrow for our first day of moving.

We'll keep you up to date here so be sure to check back with us later in the week - if we can get out from under our stacks of moving boxes, that is.

11/21/2025

We were honored to welcome Hooman H. Rashidi, MD, MS, FCAP, to the Bethel Musculoskeletal Research Center (BMRC) as a guest speaker at our monthly research seminar. As the Associate Dean of AI in Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, Executive Vice Chair of Computational Pathology & Informatics Division, UPMC and the Executive Director of CPACE (Computational Pathology & AI Center of Excellence), Dr. Rashidi brings together clinical insight, bioinformatics, and a deep understanding of machine learning to transform and improve patient care, research and education.

During his visit, Dr. Rashidi toured our lab space and engaged with our researchers and core lab staff. His talk on Auto-ML, synthetic data and text and image data in generative AI sparked discussion and ideas during the seminar.

We are deeply grateful for Dr. Rashidi’s insights and we look forward to exploring opportunities to advance musculoskeletal research with AI as a valuable tool.

11/18/2025

Members of our BMRC core labs, including representatives from our Ferguson Spine Lab, traveled together to Newark, DE, for this year’s Orthopaedic Research Society's Philadelphia Spine Research Society (PSRS) Symposium, held on Friday, November 7, at the University of Delaware’s FinTech Innovation Hub.

This year’s meeting celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Philadelphia Spine Research Society, bringing together clinicians, research leaders, scientists, and students for keynote talks and presentations spanning the full spectrum of spine research. Topics included development, pathophysiology, aging, pain, diagnostics, and emerging therapeutics.

We were delighted to connect with Bethel/ORS Fellows, Dr. Kevin Burt ('24) and Dr. Mark Kim ('25), who both presented research at this year's symposium.

We extend our appreciation to the Orthopaedic Research Society PSRS organizers for hosting an amazing event and look forward to next year's symposium!