10^th International Conference on
Orthopedics, Trauma & Rheumatology

Margo K. Apostolos, PhD. is the Co-Director and Co-Founder of the Cedars-Sinai/ USC Glorya Kaufman Dance Medicine Center and Associate Professor of Dance at the University of Southern California. Apostolos earned a PhD in Physical Education with a Philosophy minor a Stanford University, MA in Dance from Northwestern University, and BS in Physical Education with a Dance minor from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. Her practiced based work in training dancers and athletes spans over forty years including numerous Olympians and professional athletes. In addition, Apostolos pioneered work in the development of Robot Choreography and was awarded a prestigious NASA/JPL Faculty Fellowship for work in space telerobotics. She works with both humans and robots.

Dance Medicine

Diana obtained her degree in Mechanical Engineering and her PhD in solid state gyroscopes from the University of Hertfordshire (UH). Diana has 30 patents granted on solid state sensors and more recently on medical applications relating to the use of these sensors. In 2000 Diana was awarded an MBE for services to SMEs in the region and in 2002 she won the Women Inventor of the Year Award for Industry. In 2005 Diana was awarded an Honorary doctorate from the UH for services to innovation. In 1995 Diana and her husband established their own business, and in 2009 launched their sensor based gait monitoring product, GaitSmart. This system is now in use in variety of healthcare and sports applications. One of the sectors where it is applied is orthopaedics, with a particular focus on osteoarthritis and a number of papers have been published on this topic. Diana is currently a visiting professor at the UH and helped to establish a new MEng course in Biomedical Engineering and in 2014 was awarded Alumni of the year at the UH.

Diana has a strong research interest in developing tools to improve diagnosis of hip and knee OA and to improve the functional outcomes of those people who have received a hip or knee joint replacement.

Prof.Dr. Esra KUPELI AKKOL was born in Turkey. She got her Bachelor of Science degree in Faculty of Pharmacy, Gazi University, Turkey and got her Ph.D. degree in Pharmacognosy Department from the University of Gazi. She is currently Professor in the Gazi University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacognosy. She served in many capacities in her field including service on several editorial boards and numerous review committees for journals such as Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Journal of Pharmacy Sciences, The Internet Journal of Herbal and Plant Medicine, International Journal of Genuine Traditional Medicine, Advances in Pharmacological Sciences, Evidence Based Complementary Alternative Medicine and The Open Pain Journal. She has conducted 38 projects and 11 thesis in Gazi University. She has 149 published articles in SCI International Journals, 13 articles in National Journals and 9 chapters in International books.

• Bioassay guided isolation of active constituents - Phytochemistry and Analytical Pharmacognosy • Anti-inflammatory, antinociceptive, anti-rheumatic activities of folk remedies and synthesized compounds • Wound healing assessment of medicinal plants and their secondary metabolites • Isolation of the natural compounds from the medicinal plants used against gynecological disorders • Anti-carcinogenic assessment of medicinal plants and their secondary metabolites.

Dr. Jike Lu is an Orthopaedic surgeon, Chairperson, Professor, Dept of Orthopaedics at Wenzhou Med University, BJU, Beijing China. He completed his doctorate at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Before his doctoral studies in Australia, Dr. Lu was a qualified orthopedic spine surgeon and Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Xinjiang Medical University. Dr. Lu accumulated ten years of extensive experience in orthopedic trauma, tumors, joint replacement, and spinal surgeries. He has served in numerous hospital institutions in Melbourne and Sydney. Dr. Lu’s primary clinical interest is orthopedic surgery for adults and children. In addition, Dr. Lu has also served as a visiting professor of orthopedic surgery at Wenzhou Medical University. Dr. Lu has over 30 years of clinical experience in the treatment and diagnosis of spinal degenerative disorders, cervical spondylosis, lumbar disc herniation, stenosis and spondylolisthesis, and spinal trauma and tumors. Dr. Lu specializes in orthopedic trauma, joint arthroplasty, and total knee joint and hip replacement. Dr. Jike Lu has published over 50 Research articles in Chinese in scientific and medical journals. Dr. Lu currently holds unconditional national medical board registration and is certified by the Australia Medical Council.

Low back pain, Spinal stenosis and inter vertebral disc degeneration, CT and myelography, MRI, Surgical intervention for cervical & lumbar degenerative diseases, Clinical and image analysis relating to diagnosis of spinal disorders

Dr. Takatomo MINE was born in Fukuoka, Japan. He got his bachelor degree from Yamaguchi University School of Medicine. He got his Ph.D. (Dr. of Medical Science) degree at Yamaguchi University School of Medicine. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Yamaguchi University. He is the Director of Orthopedic Surgery & Rheumatology at Kanmon Medical Center, Yamaguchi and also a member of various associations: Japanese Orthopedic Association(1985), The Central Japan Association of Orthopedic Surgery & Traumatology(1985), International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Orthopaedic Sports Medicine(2014), Japanese Society for Regenerative Medicine(2015), Japanese Society for Cartilage Metabolism(2017) and many other. He has published around 35 articles in various International Journals in the field of Orthopedics.

Knee surgery, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Sports Medicine, Biomechanics

Seunghee Cha, DDS, PhD, has her expertise in the pathogenesis of Sjögren’s syndrome (SjS), focusing on the understanding of the altered salivary microenvironment and glandular regeneration. As a clinician/scientist, her long-term research goal has been to develop interventional strategies for patients suffering from SjS. This motivation allowed her to generate a SjS-prone mouse model, characterize altered SjS target tissue homeostasis, create a conjugate that protects salivary acinar cells in the SjS glandular microenvironment, profile SjS-associated miRNAs, and identify their putative target molecules. Additionally, Dr. Cha has identified via proteomics transcription factors that contribute to transdifferentiation of mesenchymal stem cells into salivary progenitor cells. Her lab is in the process of characterizing those transcription factors to identify the master regulators for the generation of saliva secreting cells. Her study summarized above was conducted to identify ways to bypass the need for a lip biopsy and improve the currently dubious diagnostic criteria for SjS.

Sjӧgren’s syndrome, Autoimmunity/autoantibodies, Salivary gland regeneration/Stem cells and miRNA in innate immunity.

Dr. Askanase has her expertise evaluation in Associate Professor of Medicine – Clinical Director Lupus Center. In 1993-1994 Askanase worked as an Assistant Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Carol Davila, Bucharest, Romania. From 2014 to present she working as an Associate Professor of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York. She is a member of Arthritis Foundation in 2005, Lupus Foundation of America in 2011. She awarded Rheumatology Outstanding Teacher Award – NYU School of Medicine in 2013, Clinical Director Columbia Lupus Center and Rheumatology Clinical Trials-CUMC, New York in 2014.

Rheumatology, Internal Medicine, Connective Tissue Diseases.

Dr. Jeong is the new Chairperson of World Taekwondo medical and anti-doping committee, Director of Sports and Musculoskeletal Medicine at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine who introduced the use of point-of-care ultrasound to World Taekwondo for the first time. He has an extensive background in the use of point of care ultrasound in primary care, sports medicine, emergency & critical care medicine. He is certified in diagnostic musculoskeletal (RMSK) and abdomen(RDMS) sonography as well as EM POCUS (APCA). He has written three book chapters on this subject and has developed curriculum in this area for international Taekwondo team doctors, attending physicians, fellows, resident physicians, and medical students. He has been invited as an instructor for nationally well-known ultrasound workshop programs at UC Irvine Annual Ultrafest and National Center for Procedures Institute Ultrasound workshop for primary care physicians.

Use of Point of care ultrasound in primary care, sports medicine, emergency & critical care medicine

Dr. Steffen Gay has his expertise evaluation in Professor of Experimental Rheumatology and Leading Doctor, Center for Experimental Rheumatology, Clinic of Rheumatology, and University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland. Recognized as Center of Excellence 2015‐2020 by the European League against Rheumatism since 1996. Professor Steffen Gay has graduated from the Medical School at the University in Leipzig in 1972. After medical and research training in Germany, he has been holding office from 1976- 1996 at the Department of Medicine at the University of Alabama in Birmingham AL, and served there as Professor of Medicine from 1984 -1996. Since 1996 he is Professor of Experimental Rheumatology at the University Hospital of Zurich, Switzerland. The Center has been recognized as a EULAR Center of Excellence in Rheumatology from 2005-2015. The Center of Experimental Rheumatology has been part of the EC supported EURO-RA Marie Curie Actions Research Training Networks (RTNs), such as EURO-RA and was part of the EC-FP6 supported AUTOCURE project (2006-11) and the EC FP7 MASTERSWITCH project (2008-2013). Now the Center is supported by the Institute of Arthritis Research (2010-2016), the EC IMI BTCure (2011-2016), the EC Marie Curie OsteoImmune (2012-2016) and the EC Euro TEAM (2012-2016).

Epigenetic modifications in rheumatic and cardiovascular diseases including methylation, acetylation, sumoylation and microRNA, represent the major focus of our current research. The Molecular and cellular basis of joint destruction in rheumatic diseases especially involves the search for novel genes and their signaling pathways (“Functional Genomics”).