PIPages
Labs

Payam Zandiyeh

University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, TX·Biomedical Engineering

Injuries to the acromioclavicular joint (ACJ), where the collarbone meets the top of the shoulder blade, are among the most common shoulder injuries in young athletes who play contact sports. These injuries can affect shoulder health and function for years.

Fields

Biomedical Engineering

Medicine & Clinical Research

Engineering

Topics

acromioclavicular joint

shoulder injury

sports medicine

Grants
1 known grant, through Aug 2029

What they work on

  1. Compare shoulder mechanics after coracoclavicular-only repair versus combined acromioclavicular and coracoclavicular repair, using Dynamic Stereo X-ray, which tracks 3D bone motion, in patients followed over time.
  2. Assess soft-tissue health of the repaired ACJ across surgical groups using Ultrashort Echo Time MRI, an imaging method sensitive to ligaments and tendons, at repeated time points.
  3. Test whether tunnel-free combined ACJ reconstruction restores shoulder stability and range of motion as well as combined reconstruction anchored through bone tunnels, in a multicenter patient cohort.

More about the research

Severe injuries are usually repaired with surgery, but surgeons have little evidence about which technique works best. Modern repairs favor non-rigid fixations, which mimic the joint's natural anatomy more closely than older rigid fixations. Even so, open questions remain about how much of the joint to rebuild and how to anchor the repair.

Why it matters

Athletes and other patients with high-grade ACJ injuries could benefit from clearer evidence on which surgery best restores shoulder motion, strength and soft-tissue health. The study may help surgeons decide whether to add acromioclavicular reconstruction and whether less invasive tunnel-free techniques, which carry less fracture risk, are as effective. It may also reveal limitations that point to improved surgical methods.

Known grants

From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.

Multicenter, longitudinal study of acromioclavicular joint reconstruction techniques for restoring shoulder complex biomechanics and soft tissue health

NIH · Sep 2024 – Aug 2029

Closest labs

Caroline Guglielmetti

Washington University in St Louis, MO·Biomedical Engineering·Early-career

Image lactate metabolism and myelin content during lesion formation and spontaneous repair in two MS mouse models, using hyperpolarized [1-13C]lactate MRI and myelin-sensitive UTE-MT imaging.

Nathaniel Dyment

University of Pennsylvania, PA·Biomedical Engineering

Measure how long the hedgehog pathway activator SAG is released from BiLDS scaffolds and whether it stays biologically active, using an in vitro release study.

Matthew B Fisher

North Carolina State University, NC·Biomedical Engineering

Determine how ACL reconstruction technique (epiphyseal, complete transphyseal or partial transphyseal, differing in how they cross the bone's growth plate) affects knee stability and joint degeneration at different stages of skeletal maturity, using a growing pig model.

The school

University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston: 25 labs on PI Pages, $419M a year on research, 340 research doctorates a year.

More about University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

Reach out

A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.