The Plastic Surgery Foundation
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Grants We Funded

Grant applicants for the 2023 cycle requested a total of nearly $4 million dollars. The PSF Study Section Subcommittees of Basic & Translational Research and Clinical Research evaluated nearly 140 grant applications on the following topics:

The PSF awarded research grants totaling over $1 million dollars to support nearly 30 plastic surgery research proposals.

ASPS/PSF leadership is committed to continuing to provide high levels of investigator-initiated research support to ensure that plastic surgeons have the needed research resources to be pioneers and innovators in advancing the practice of medicine.

Research Abstracts

Search The PSF database to have easy access to full-text grant abstracts from past PSF-funded research projects 2003 to present. All abstracts are the work of the Principal Investigators and were retrieved from their PSF grant applications. Several different filters may be applied to locate abstracts specific to a particular focus area or PSF funding mechanism.

The Effect of Polymer-Bound BMP-2 on MC3T3-E1 Mineralization

Principal Investigator
Jay Calvert MD

Year
2003

Institution
Southern California Institute for Research and Education

Funding Mechanism
Basic Research Grant

Focus Area
Cranio/Maxillofacial/Head and Neck

Abstract
Reconstructive surgeons are frequently confronted with significant bony defects that result from trauma, ablative surgery, or congenital abnormalities. Current treatment options include the use of autogenous bone grafts or distraction osteogenesis; however, both of these techniques are limited in their application by anatomic considerations and operative and perioperative morbidity. In order to avert these problems, tissue engineering research has sought a biosynthetic bone substitute that could be used to treat critical-sized bony defects. The current experimental paradigm involves the seeding of a biodegradable scaffold with osteoblast precursor cells that will proceed to produce new bony tissue as the scaffold is gradually absorbed after implantation. The majority of scaffolds studied have been constructed from aliphatic polyester polymers such as poly (lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) and polycaprolactone (PCL), both of which are in current medical use as suture material and in drug delivery systems. Several studies have successfully grown osteoblasts on these polymer scaffolds with varying degrees of subsequent mineralization; osteoblasts cultured on PLGA display a greater amount of mineralization than osteoblasts cultured on PCL. Since PCL is superior to PLGA as a scaffold material, (it is cheaper and easier to mold into three-dimensional forms), it is our hypothesis that bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) that has been covalently bound to PCL will retain its stimulatory effect on bone synthesis and increase both the amount and efficiency of new bone tissue formation. BMP-2 is currently one of the strongest known growth factors that induces the generation of new bone. The specific aim of this project is to determine if BMP-2 can be successfully bound in a covalent manner to PCL, and if so, whether or not it retains its biological activity in influencing osteogenesis. If indeed scaffolds made of PCL with bound BMP-2 display augmented bone formation, then BMP-2 treated PCL may prove to be the material of choice for biosynthetic replacement implants for bony reconstruction.