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SPRING/SUMMER 1999 ARCHIVE Clemson Recognized as Leader in Orthopaedic Bioengineering Clemson University Mathematics: The Next National Champion? Clemson University, Southeast Leader in Invention Income Where the Rubber Meets the Roador Off-Road Clemson Students Win NSF Awards Professor Receives National Math Award Thomas Green Clemson Academy Welcomes Three New Members Dow Chemical Pledges More Than Half-Million Dollars to Film-Related Research Catfish: Improving Environment and Economy ACES Reunion and BBQ is Coming!  |
Clemson Recognized as Leader in Orthopaedic Bioengineering Breakthroughs in the design of better artificial joints are being made at Clemson -- aided by a unique knee-simulation laboratory that allows researchers to "lifetime-test" implants in under two months.
"The knee implants we are designing will last significantly longer than implants currently in use," said Martine LaBerge, a bioengineering professor who is the catalyst behind the newly established $1.3 million Laboratory of Polymeric Bearing Modeling, Characterization and Simulation. The lab, recognized as a leader in the field of wear of orthopaedic implants in the United States, is funded by the National Science Foundation, industrial partners and an anonymous philanthropic foundation. The new materials and longer-wearing plastic components, designed as a result of the research, will be stronger and better able to withstand the enormous stresses put upon the human knee, said LaBerge. LaBerge and her colleagues are also exploring improved methods for lubricating the materials used in artificial knees. One possibility includes harnessing the knee's natural lubricating mechanism to attract existing fats or lipids onto the surface of the implants, thus helping protect them against wear. The lab, outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment such as the Instron-Stanmore Knee Joint Simulator, offers faculty and students unusually detailed research into wear and lubrication studies on artificial knees and advanced materials. Unique computational models are designed in the laboratory to study material failure at both the macroscopic and the microscopic levels. "Bioengineering can't stop the aging process -- but we can help make its complications less painful," said LaBerge.
As much as 90 percent of the population may suffer from some form of degenerative joint disease such as arthritis by age 40. Even under the best conditions, the knee has a higher incidence of joint degeneration than any other joint in the human body. Typically, more than 4 percent of the 275,000 knees and hips replaced each year in the United States fail due to excessive wear. For the patients, that means not only physical pain, but financial suffering since the cost of fixing an implant is at least 33 percent more expensive than the initial surgery. Meanwhile, total joint replacements -- seen as the ultimate treatment for severe arthritis -- are responsible for an economic loss of $21 billion dollars in a typical year, according to a study released by the Arthritis Foundation in 1993. |
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Graduate students involved with
the research include Lisa Benson, Rebecca Caldwell, Sungyeol
Cho, Matthew Gevaert, Neelesh F. Kunte, Adrian Loghin, Sunita
Pullela-Ho, Kathy Ross and Anupama Sarma. The research is a collaborative
effort that involves the