Dr. Robert Mauck

Biography

Robert L. Mauck, PhD, is the Mary Black Ralston Professor of Education Research in Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. He serves as a Senior Research Career Scientist and Co-Director of the Translational Musculoskeletal Research Center at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center in Philadelphia. His research program focuses on engineering mechanobiology of musculoskeletal tissues, with a particular interest in restoring articular cartilage, knee meniscus, and intervertebral disc. Dr. Mauck’s team utilizes mechanical and molecular analyses to explore the relationships between native tissue structure, function, and phenotype in health and disease, employing this information to enhance regeneration through focused technology development. His work examines progenitor cell function and efficacy across a variety of biomaterial contexts at multiple length scales, including subcellular biophysical properties and the translation of engineered systems to large animal models. His research has received funding from the NIH, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and private foundations. He has published over 310 manuscripts that have been cited more than 20,000 times in the field of musculoskeletal tissue engineering and mechanobiology, and he has mentored over 40 PhD, MD-PhD, and VMD-PhD students and postdoctoral fellows in his laboratory.

Research Interests