Jay Patel, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Orthopaedics, Emory University
Health Science Specialist
Atlanta VA Medical Center

Jay Patel joined the faculty at Emory in September 2020, and his program focuses on the repair and regeneration of musculoskeletal tissues (e.g., cartilage, meniscus), with an emphasis on using micro-scale findings to drive macro-scale therapies. His lab uses a combination of biomechanics, biomaterials, mechano-biology, in vitro systems, and functional in vivo models to motivate, design, develop, and evaluate novel treatments and therapeutics for musculoskeletal injuries. 

Patel received his Bachelor’s in Bioengineering from Rice University and his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Rutgers University. While at Rutgers, his research focused on a novel meniscus replacement scaffold, evaluating it in long-term large-animal models and human cadaveric biomechanical simulations. Patel then pursued his postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, working on a variety of cartilage tissue engineering and mechano-biology projects. He has published over 30 manuscripts, many in leading orthopaedic and tissue engineering journals, and has presented at numerous international conference meetings. Furthermore, he has won several prestigious awards, including the Excellence in Research Award (2018) from the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine and the Cum Laude Award (2019) from the International Cartilage Repair Society. Moreover, both his graduate and postdoctoral work resulted in pending patent applications, and the formation of startup companies with active small-business funding, demonstrating his ultimate goal of translating these approaches to the clinic. Currently, Jay Patel has a Career Development Award through the Department of Veterans Affairs, and is actively expanding his program to interface between basic science, engineering, and the clinic.