Boise State professor receives $500,000 grant to study knee injuries

Meniscus tears are some of the most common knee injuries suffered, and yet there is little known about causes, with no true repair offered.

Trevor Lujan, assistant professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering at Boise State, received a five-year, $500,000 National Science Foundation CAREER Award that will allow him to further investigate this failure of the human body.

The award is the most prestigious the NSF provides, supporting junior faculty and their integration of research with education. Lujan will use the award to study the half-million acute meniscus tears that occur in the U.S. each year, most of which have no effective treatment that leads to full recovery.

Because of a lack of blood flow in the area, the meniscus has very limited healing ability, and severe injury typically leads to the surgical removal of part of the tissue. Unfortunately, since the meniscus cushions the knee, this partial removal leaves the knee unstable for increased risk of injury and osteoarthritis.

Lujan hopes to learn why some people are more susceptible to injuries than others, uncovering the structural and mechanical origins of failure. Age is one factor he’ll study closely as he seeks a means of early identification of weakness, as well as what can be done to truly heal the tissue.

All of this will be made possible through collaborative efforts with Daniel Schwen at Idaho National Laboratory.