Fixing Joints That Appear Beyond Repair

By Cato Thomas Laurencin, Debolina Ghosh

A lunchtime sketch of an engineered ligament helped launch a revolution in sports medicine.

Medicine Technology

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This Article From Issue

July-August 2022

Volume 110, Number 4

Page 238

DOI: 10.1511/2022.110.4.238

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In the early 1990s, I (Laurencin) was a sports medicine fellow and often saw knee injuries, some of them severe enough to devastate athletes’ careers.

When Minnesota Viking star running back Adrian Peterson tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) well into the 2011 National Football League season, his team didn’t expect him back on the field until 2013. However, he was ready to go on the first day of the 2012 season, mere months after his injury. Advances in ACL surgery are making it possible for more and more athletes to get back to their games faster, and regenerative engineering holds the promise of making damaged ACLs as good as new and cutting down recovery time by many months.

**Jim Mone/AP Images**

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