Alumni grant supports medical student research
Two students receive the Sybert Family Orthopedic
Research Awards

Two students at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine received Sybert Family Orthopedic Research Award grants from the college’s Institute for Neuromusculoskeletal Research.

The award, now in its second year, is designed to promote osteopathic student research in the field of orthopedics. The award has provided up to $5,000 to an OU-HCOM student in support of research.

Funding for the award was provided by Daryl Sybert, D.O. (’86), F.A.O.A.O., OU-HCOM clinical associate professor of orthopedic surgery and an orthopedic surgeon at the Mt. Carmel New Albany Surgery Hospital.

Paul H. Eichenseer, OMS III, received a $3,000 grant for his project, “Fine Element Modeling of the Human Sacroiliac Joints,” and David J. Goss Jr., OMS II, received a grant for $2,000 for his project, “Neurophysiology of Spinal Manipulation.”

Eichenseer, who was the award’s first recipient last year, conducts research on spino-pelvic biomechanics with a particular interest in sacroiliac join mechanics. He is mentored by Sybert as well as John Cotton, Ph.D., of the Russ College of Engineering and Technology.

Eichenseer received his bachelor’s degree in biophysics from Johns Hopkins University in 2006, and he worked as a research associate at The Ohio State University prior to beginning medical school. His research focuses on the sacroiliac joint, a historically under-studied joint between the sacrum and the pelvis.

Eichenseer will continue work he began with last year’s award. “We’re looking at stresses in the pelvis and in the spine, and how stresses are transmitted from the upper part of the body down through the spine and pelvis to the lower extremity,” he said last year.

Goss, who earned a bachelor’s degree in exercise science from Eastern University, worked as an orthopedic assistant for Ray Tesner, D.O., in Columbus at SportsMedicine GRANT and Orthopedic Associates for two years before enrolling at OU-HCOM. Tesner is an OU-HCOM clinical associate professor of orthopedic surgery.

Last year, Goss completed a Research and Scholarly Advancement Fellowship (RSAF) under the guidance of Brian Clark, Ph.D., assistant professor of neuromuscular biology, in which he studied the physiologic effects and mechanisms of high-velocity low-amplitude (HVLA) spinal manipulation in patients with chronic low back pain. The research was supported in part by a grant from the Osteopathic Heritage Foundations.

Goss said the Sybert Award will allow him to continue to explore the pathophysiology of low back pain and further evaluate the effects of osteopathic manipulation techniques. “It is my hope that these studies will reveal some of details behind the clinically effective mechanisms of spinal manipulation in treatment of chronic low back pain,” he said.