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Rocky Tuan, PhD
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Dr. Rocky S. Tuan received his PhD in 1977 from the Rockefeller University in New York, and postdoctoral research training at Harvard Medical School in Boston, in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Children's Hospital, and in the Developmental Biology Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1980, Dr. Tuan was appointed as Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1986. In 1988, Dr. Tuan joined Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, to be the Director of Orthopaedic Research and Professor and Vice Chairman in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery with a joint appointment in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
From 1992-1995, Dr. Tuan was the Academic Director of the MD/PhD program at Jefferson, and in 1997, he established the nation's first Cell and Tissue Engineering PhD program at Jefferson, with the mission of training the next generation of "cross-cultural" biomedical scientists committed to regenerative medicine and the development of functional tissue substitutes. In the fall of 2001, Dr. Tuan joined the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Arthritis, and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), as Chief of the newly created Cartilage Biology and Orthopaedics Branch. In 2004, Dr. Tuan received the Marshall Urist Award for Excellence in Tissue Regeneration Research of the Orthopaedic Research Society. In the Fall of 2009, Dr. Tuan was recruited by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine to be the Founding Director of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Engineering, and as Arthur J. Rooney, Senior Chair Professor and Executive Vice Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, with a joint appointment in the Department of Bioengineering. He currently serves as the Co-Director of the Wake Forest University/University of Pittsburgh Consortium of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, the Department of Defense-funded, multi-institutional, interdisciplinary organization dedicated to the development of advanced regenerative treatment options for wounded warfighters.
Dr. Tuan has published over 400 research papers, has lectured extensively, and is currently Editor of the developmental biology journal, BDRC: Embryo Today the Founding
Editor-in-Chief of Stem Cell and Research Therapy, and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Arthroplasty, Matrix Biology, Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, and Cell Communication and Adhesion.
Dr. Tuan directs a multidisciplinary research program that focuses on orthopaedic research as a study of the biological activities underlying the development, growth, function, and health of skeletal tissues, and the utilization of this knowledge to develop cell-based technologies that will regenerate and/or restore function to diseased and damaged skeletal tissues. Ongoing research projects are directed towards skeletal development, stem cells, growth factor signaling, bone-biomaterial interaction, extracellular matrix and cell-matrix interaction, nanotechnology, mechanobiology, regenerative medicine, and tissue engineering, utilizing integrated contemporary technologies of biochemistry, cell and molecular biology, embryology and development, cellular imaging, and engineering.