The Spine Outcomes Research Center is a multidisciplinary group committed to improving patient outcomes and applying high-quality and purposeful research to professional practice. The organization values collegial interaction and strong scientific principles.

The bony skeleton is one of the most common sites of metastatic spread of cancer and a significant source of morbidity in cancer patients, causing pain and pathological fracture, impaired ambulatory ability and poorer quality of life.

In our continuous investigation of the mechanism of metastasis in spine tumors and of developing animal models and treatments, our team seeks to understand how cancer cells metastasize to the bony spine.

Our laboratory develops novel techniques to evaluate our animal models of metastatic spine disease.

Five to 35 percent of spine fusionprocedures fail, even when using the gold standard treatment of grafting bone from the patient's own iliac crest. Fusion failure, otherwise known as pseudoarthrosis, is a major cause of failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) and results in significant pain and disability, increasing the need for additional procedures and driving up health care costs. The ultimate goal of the Spinal Fusion Laboratory is to eliminate pseudoarthrosis by using animal models to study various strategies for improving spinal fusion outcomes, including delivery of various growth factors and biological agents; stem cell therapies and tissue engineering approaches.

Research in the Athir Morad Lab primarily focuses on perioperative pain management for neurosurgery patients. Our team has conducted two randomized controlled trials to assess the efficacy of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) following craniotomy. Our current research includes studies on the safety of opioid administration following craniotomy through the use of end-tidal CO2 detection, as well as research into the use of transcortical magnetic stimulation (TMS) for managing pain after spine surgery.

The Spinal Column Surgical Outcomes Laboratory aims to improve the neurological outcomes and functional capacity of patients undergoing spinal surgery. We collect large-scale retrospective patient databases and prospective patient registries to report high-quality data relating to the outcomes of neurosurgical operations. The laboratory participates in the National neurosurgical Quality and Outcomes Database (N2QOD). This multi-institutional collaboration has set forth a 3-year prospective study to benchmark quality and surgical outcome measures across several academic institutions. The Spinal Column Surgical Outcomes Laboratory specializes in biostatistical analysis of large-scale clinical databases, studying the outcomes of traditional and novel spinal procedures, quality control and cost-effectiveness research and clinical trials relating to spinal surgery outcomes.