Welcome Dr. Melissa Kacena

The Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Indiana University School of Medicine, is pleased to welcome Dr. Melissa Kacena as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Orthopaedics Surgery. In addition, Dr. Kacena has an adjunct faculty appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at IUPUI as well as in the Anatomy Department at IU.

Dr. Kacena received her Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Colorado , Boulder in collaboration with Harvard Medical School and NASA Ames Research Center in 1999. She then began her postdoctoral training in the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at Yale University School of Medicine. In 2002, she was promoted to research faculty at Yale and was subsequently promoted to Assistant Professor in 2005. Dr. Kacena was recruited to IU in 2007.

Dr. Kacena's work has resulted in numerous awards including the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research Young Investigator Award, the Advances in Mineral Metabolism/American Society for Bone and Mineral Research Young Investigator Award, the National Society for Histotechnology Diamond Cover Award, the Sun Valley Workshop on Skeletal Tissue Biology, Alice L. Jee Memorial Young Investigator Award, and the US Bone and Joint Decade Young Investigators Initiative

Dr. Kacena's overall research goal is to improve the understanding of the interaction of the bone and hematopoietic systems, thereby potentially improving the treatment of metabolic bone disease and fracture healing. To achieve this goal, her research will focus in three areas: 1) The role of megakaryocyte growth factors and their receptors in bone homeostasis; 2) Translational/clinical studies examining the genetic regulation of skeletal homeostasis; and 3) The molecular mechanisms underlying bone repair/fracture healing.