JOR Spine Early Career Award

With support from the ORS Spine Section, we are pleased to announce the establishment of the JOR Spine Early Career Award. This new award is designed to recognize the ‘rising stars’ of our field and highlight their outstanding work published in the JOR Spine. Each year, awardees will be recognized at the ORS Annual Meeting and ORS Spine Section Meeting.

Recognition

  • Honorarium of $1,000
  • Complimentary registration for the ORS Annual Meeting

Eligibility

To qualify for the award, individuals must:

  • Be an Assistant Professor (or equivalent) within 10 years of completion of their terminal degree;
  • Publish a manuscript in JOR Spine (as lead or corresponding author) by October of the year in which they are under consideration;
  • Be an ORS Spine Section member in good standing;
  • Be a registered attendee of the ORS Annual Meeting and present at the ORS Awards Ceremony to receive the award;
  • Manuscript is accepted at JOR SPINE between October 31st, 2023-October 30th, 2024.

Submissions

Interested individuals should apply during the initial submission by answering the questions in the JOR SPINE Early Career Award section in step 1 of the submission process. Review of applications for the JOR SPINE Early Career Award will be performed by a committee consisting of the EICs and members of the ORS Spine Section Executive Committee. Manuscripts will be judged on the quality of science, the potential impact, and the innovation of the work. Decisions will be made by November of the year preceding the year in which it is awarded.

2024 Winners

Junxuan Ma, PhD

"The influence of intervertebral disc overloading on nociceptor calcium flickering" (Jan Gewiess, Janick Eglauf, Astrid Soubrier, Sibylle Grad, Mauro Alini, Marianna Peroglio, Junxuan Ma)

John Martin, PhD

"Socioeconomic status, mental health, and nutrition are the principal traits for low back pain phenotyping: Data from the osteoarthritis initiative" (ZeYu Huang, Weihua Guo, John T. Martin)

2023 Winners

Rebecca Wachs, PhD

"Axial hypersensitivity is associated with aberrant nerve sprouting in a novel model of disc degeneration in female Sprague Dawley rats" (David J. Lillyman, Fei San Lee, Evie C. Barnett, Tyler J. Miller, Moreno Lozano Alvaro, Henry C. Drvol, Rebecca A. Wachs)

Ben Walter, PhD

"Pericellular heparan sulfate proteoglycans: Role in regulating the biosynthetic response of nucleus pulposus cells to osmotic loading" (Carly M. Krull, Jordan Rife, Brett Klamer, Devina Purmessur, Benjamin A. Walter)

2022 Winner

Sarah Gullbrand, PhD

“Development of a standardized histopathology scoring system for intervertebral disc degeneration and regeneration in rabbit models-An initiative of the ORS Spine section” (Sarah Gullbrand, Beth G. Ashinsky, Alon Lai, Jennifer Gansau, James Crowley, Carla Cunha, Julie B. Engiles, Marion Fusellier, Carol Muehleman, Matthew Pelletier, Steven Presciutti, Jordy Schol, Yoshiki Takeoka, Takashi Yurube, Yejia Zhang, Koichi Masuda, James C. Iatridis)

2021 Winners

Zhen Li, PhD

“Proinflammatory intervertebral disc cell and organ culture models induced by tumor necrosis factor alpha” (Jie Du, Judith-J. Pfannkuche, Gernot Lang, Sonja Häckel, Laura B. Creemers, Mauro Alini, Sibylle Grad, Zhen Li)

Uruj Zehra, PhD

“Spinopelvic alignment predicts disc calcification, displacement, and Modic changes: Evidence of an evolutionary etiology for clinically-relevant spinal phenotypes” (Uruj Zehra, Jason P. Y. Cheung, Cora Bow, Rebecca J. Crawford, Keith D. K. Luk, William Lu, Dino Samartzis)