The J. Robert Gladden Orthopaedic Society (JRGOS) Augustus White Founders Award recognizes the recipient’s exceptional contributions to advancing culturally sensitive musculoskeletal care while promoting diversity within orthopaedics and exemplifying an unswerving commitment to excellence in the field.

Augustus A. White III Founders Award

The John P. McGovern Compleat Physician Award, presented by the Houston Academy of Medicine, is given to individuals who exemplify the life and practices of Sir William Osler, who was considered the “Father of Modern American Medicine.” The award recognizes multi-accomplished physicians who have enriched the field of medicine with excellence and humaneness.

John P. McGovern Compleat Physician Award

Presented by the American Chemical Society, the Kathryn C. Hach Award for Entrepreneurial Success recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who have created a commercially viable business within the chemical enterprise.

2024 Kathryn C. Hach Award for Entrepreneurial Success

The Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation (IPOEF) Inventor of the Year is the annual award presented to the world’s most outstanding recent inventors.

2023 Inventor of the Year, Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation

The Priestley Medal is the highest honor of the American Chemical Society

2023 Priestley Medalist

Named after the late J.E. Spingarn–then NAACP Chairman of the Board of Directors– this gold medal, awarded annually since 1915, honors “the man or woman of African descent and American citizenship who shall have made the highest achievement during the preceding year or years in any honorable field.”

2021 NAACP Spingarn Medal

Elected in recognition of distinguished and continuing achievements in original research

U.S. National Academy of Sciences

The Materials Research Society’s highest honor, the Von Hippel Award, is conferred annually to an individual in recognition of the recipient’s outstanding contribution to interdisciplinary research on materials.

The Materials Research Society Von Hippel Award

Nelson W. Taylor Lecture and Award

Recipient of the Acta Materialia, Inc. Gold Medal

Mike Hogg Award and Lecture, MD Anderson Cancer Center highest honor

Listed as CrossTalk’s 100 Inspiring Black Scientists in America

Recipient, E.E. Just Lecture Award, American Society for Cell Biology

Recipient, Global Biomaterials Leadership Award, Chinese Association of Biomaterials

Named to America’s Top Doctors (15th consecutive year)

Lee Hsun Lecture Award, Shenyang University, China

Elected Member, European Academy of Sciences

International Fellow, Royal Academy of Engineering

Chair, National Academies Roundtable on Black Men and Black Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine

Elected Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Materials Science Working Group, The African Academy of Sciences

Selection Committee Member, Johnson & Johnson Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research

Edward Orton, Jr. Memorial Lecture (Highest Lectureship) American Ceramic Society

The end of the handshake?

Injectable nanocomposite analgesic delivery system for musculoskeletal pain management

Phosphate graphene as an intrinsically osteoinductive scaffold for stem cell-driven bone regeneration

Biodegradable Piezoelectric Force Sensor

Engineered stem cell niche matrices for rotator cuff tendon regenerative engineering

Growth factor delivery strategies for rotator cuff repair and regeneration

Microsphere-Based Scaffolds in Regenerative Engineering

Regenerative Engineering

The University of Connecticut (UConn) is one of America’s top 20 public universities, according to U.S. News & World Report. It is home to more than 31,000 students, 1,300 faculty, 230,000 proud alumni, and a handsome husky named Jonathan.

The University has fourteen schools and colleges: Agriculture and Natural Resources, Business, Dental Medicine, Education, Engineering, Fine Arts, Law, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Social Work. Students can choose from eight undergraduate bachelor's degrees with 102 possible majors, as well as seventeen graduate/doctoral degrees and five professional degree programs (MD, JD, etc.).

UConn's main campus in Storrs is admitting the highest-achieving freshmen in University history. Student diversity continues to increase, as does the number of honors students, valedictorians and salutatorians who consistently make UConn their top choice. It's a great time to be a Husky!

University of Connecticut

Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D. is the 8th designated University Professor in the 135 year history of the University of Connecticut. He is the Albert and Wilda Van Dusen Distinguished Endowed Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery. He is the Chief Executive Officer of The Connecticut Convergence Institute for Translation in Regenerative Engineering and the Director of the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Center for Biomedical, Biological, Physical and Engineering Sciences at the University of Connecticut.

Dr. Laurencin has been named to America’s Top Doctors for over 15 years. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the American Orthopaedic Association, the American College of Surgeons and the American Surgical Association. He received the Nicolas Andry Award, the highest honor of the Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons. 

Dr. Laurencin is a pioneer of the new field, Regenerative Engineering. He was named one of the 100 Engineers of the Modern Era by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and received the Founder’s Award from the Society for Biomaterials. He received the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, NIH’s highest and most prestigious research award and the National Science Foundation’s Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation Grant Award. Dr. Laurencin is the Editor-in-Chief of Regenerative Engineering and Translational Medicine, and is the Founder of the Regenerative Engineering Society.  He is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Biomedical Engineering Society, the Materials Research Society and an AAAS Fellow. The American Association for the Advancement of Science awarded Dr. Laurencin the Philip Hauge Abelson Prize given ‘for signal contributions to the advancement of science in the United States’.

Dr. Laurencin is active in mentoring, especially underrepresented minority students. He received the American Association for the Advancement of Science Mentor Award, the Beckman Award for Mentoring, and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Math and Engineering Mentoring in ceremonies at the White House. The SFB established The Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D. Travel Fellowship in his honor. Dr. Laurencin is also active in addressing Health Disparities. 

Dr. Laurencin is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also active internationally.

Stem Cell Science and Technology

Nanotechnology

Polymeric Materials Science

Tissue Engineering

Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Biomedical Engineering

Drug Delivery System

Faculty Profile Page

UConn Magazine, Spring 2021: Pioneering the New Field of Regenerative Engineering — And Championing Social Justice

From gun violence prevention to biomedical engineering, three inventors share their stories

UConn study regrows bone using a biodegradable implant

Graphene-infused mesh could keep rotator cuff injuries from recurring

'I want to regenerate an entire leg by 2030' | Doctor's synthetic artificial stem cells research could revolutionize healing

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STEM’s racial, ethnic and gender gaps are still strikingly large

Cato T. Laurencin has Innovated Ways to Regrow Injured Tissues

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Regenerative engineering, racial profiling and healthcare disparities: A titan of life science speaks

Senior U.S. lawmaker wants National Academies to scrutinize racism in science

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COVID-19 and Black Communities

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What The Coronavirus Pandemic And The George Floyd Protests Tell Us About Racism And Health

How to address the coronavirus’s outsized toll on people of colour

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The Mental Health Effects of COVID-19 on Communities of Color

Dr. Cato Laurencin discusses study of racial disparities with COVID-19

Data shows virus hitting African Americans particularly hard

UConn Researchers Find Blacks Are Disproportionately Impacted By COVID-19

3D-Printed Graftless Bone Transplants Go to Clinical Trials

Conn. Racial Profiling Panel Considers Health Outcomes For People Stopped By Police

International symposium explores how nanoscience can help solve problems in energy, medicine

Leaders Address Shortage of Black Men in Medical Profession

Stem Cell Research Advancing Rapidly

Asking After The Future At The World Frontiers Forum

Olympic swimmer Jason Lezak makes a splash for stem cell research

President Obama Honors Outstanding Teachers and Mentors at White House

Cato Laurencin Recognized by National Geographic

Bioengineered ACL Could Help Injured Knees

Health Sciences Ray Symposium

22nd Annual AAPS

AIMBE 2019 Annual Event

ICONSAT Nanotechnology Symposium

M.I.T. Black Student’s Union

Gradient porous scaffolds

Bi-phasic 3-dimenisonal nanofiber scaffolds, two parallel beam collector device and methods of use

Mechanically competent scaffold for rotator cuff and tendon augmentation

Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D. views a commemorative video during the 106th Spingarn Medal Ceremony at the Hartford Golf Club on Jan. 28, 2022. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

 Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D., here with UConn Interim President Dr. Radenka Maric, accepts the Springarn Medal for the highest achievement of an African American by the NAACP at the Hartford Golf Club on Jan. 28, 2022. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

pioneering-uconn-researcher-regrows-human-bone-using-a-biodegradable-implant

Chief Executive Officer, Connecticut Convergence Institute

A pioneer in the field of regenerative engineering, UConn's Dr. Cato T. Laurencin is charging toward his goal of regenerating a human limb by the year 2030. 

In a step toward reaching that goal, Dr. Laurencin and his team have detailed their success in regrowing bone using a plant-derived molecule in a recent study published by PNAS, marking a major step toward affordable, safe bone regeneration and growing replacement limbs.

 Dr. Laurencin discussed this impressive breakthrough this week with Hearst Connecticut Media:

Most bone fractures heal reasonably well with care. But in severe breaks, where sections of bones are missing, or in crush injuries bones don’t always heal very well. In those cases, self-grafts or donated grafts of healthy bone from other, non-broken bones can be used to help close the gaps. But bone grafts don’t always take. Since about 2001, recombinant bone morphogenic proteins have been used to help stimulate bone growth in injuries where bone wouldn’t otherwise heal but their use has limits. While they work on long bone fractures, like those in your limbs, they’re not used on more complex bones. In some experimental treatments with fractured pelvises, recombinant bone protein caused bone tissue to form outside the skeleton. Forming bone tissue outside the skeleton is one of the more troubling side effects of this treatment. Bone tissue engineering seeks to get around this by developing implants that use adult stem cells to direct the growth of new bone across breaks that bones could not heal on their own. Some of this work involves building custom implants designed to mimic the missing bone to guide bone healing. Others attempt to deliver the bone protein in an implant, stopping it from leaving the injury area, to prevent side effects. These bone treatments are also expensive. In a meta-analysis from 2006, researchers found that they cost more than standard care for severe fractures. But UConn team took a different approach, using the drug forskolin, a molecule derived from a plant in the mint family. Forskolin triggers cells to make something called “cyclic AMP” a messenger molecule that is normally made in response to hormones. This messenger molecule turns on a wide variety of cell functions depending on what cells in which locations it stimulates. “We were intrigued by being able to find some natural material that people were already consuming in quantity,” said Dr. Laurencin, “But obviously there’s a difference between ingesting it and putting it on one location, like a bone site.” Dr. Laurencin’s team created a biodegradable plastic implant impregnated with forskolin, testing this on rabbits. The implants guided the creation of new bone tissue after 12 weeks.   If you're a journalist looking to know more about this groundbreaking research taking place at UConn, let us help with your questions and coverage.

Dr. Cato Laurencin, CEO of the Cato T. Laurencin Institute for Regenerative Engineering at UConn, is available to for interviews. Simply click on his icon now to arrange a time to talk today.





Pioneering UConn Researcher Regrows Human Bone Using a Biodegradable Implant

We are moving from an era of advanced prosthetics to one of regenerative engineering. We will soon be able to challenge the difficulties associated with musculoskeletal regeneration. Tissues such as bone, ligament, and cartilage can now be understood from the cellular level to the tissue level, giving us the capability to produce these tissues in clinically relevant forms through tissue engineering techniques. The next ten years will see unprecedented strides in the regeneration of musculoskeletal tissues. 

Dr. Cato Laurencin, a University of Connecticut Professor of Chemical, Materials and Biomolecular Engineering, is an internationally noted orthopedic surgeon and one of the preeminent pioneers of the emerging field of regenerative engineering.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Musculoskeletal regenerative engineering: Cato Laurencin at TEDxUConn 2013

MRS tv interviews Cato T. Laurencin of the University of Connecticut about his talk which is titled, " Regenerative Engineering—Convergence Built Upon Materials Science.”

Fred Kavli Distinguished Lectureship 2016: Cato T. Laurencin

In honor of Black History Month, the career of Dr. Cato T. Laurencin, director of the Institute for Regenerative Engineering and the chief executive officer of the Connecticut Institute for Clinical and Translational Science, was highlighted on FOX CT's morning show on Feb. 14.

Dr. Cato Laurencin Profiled for Black History Month

Cato T. Laurencin of the University of Connecticut is the recipient of 2019 AAAS Philip Hauge Abelson Prize. He is honored for his extraordinary contributions to science, engineering and medicine, his academic leadership and extensive service to our nation, and his promotion of diversity. For more information, read our story at https://www.aaas.org/news/dr-cato-t-laurencin-university-connecticut-receives-2019-aaas-philip-hauge-abelson-prize.

Laurencin Receives 2019 Philip Hauge Abelson Prize

In the era of COVID-19, handshakes are a thing of the past. However, thanks to two Connecticut doctors, there's an alternative people can use.

VIDEO: Two local doctors come up with alternative greeting to replace handshake

Lisa Ling interviews National Academies member and designated UConn University Professor Dr. Cato Laurencin to learn what his new COVID-19 study reveals. Plus, what's needed to mass produce a vaccine.

Why is COVID-19 hitting minority communities so hard?

In the season finale of The Road to a Vaccine, virologist Peter Piot, M.D., Ph.D., talks with Johnson & Johnson’s Paul Stoffels, M.D., about what it was like to personally battle COVID-19. World-renowned expert Cato Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D., discusses why racism is a public health crisis. Plus, other coronavirus news.

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