Martin Stoddart

Prof Martin Stoddart is the Program leader of the Regenerative Orthopaedics Program within the ARI since 2020. He also is Focus area Leader for the Progenitor cell biology and mechanoregulation. Prof Stoddart represents ARI at the AOCMF R&D Commission.

He completed his bachelor studies in Biology at the University of Aberystwyth in 1995. He then spent a year in Davos at AO Research Institute Davos where he completed his M Phil in Cartilage Biology. Between 1996–2000 he completed his doctoral thesis at the University of Nottingham in the field of Cancer Angiogenesis. He then returned to Switzerland to work in the Laboratory for Experimental Cartilage Research in Zürich, initially as a Post Doc and between 2003–2005 as Group Head. During that time, he also took a six-month sabbatical at the Centre for Molecular Orthopaedics, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women Hospital, Boston, to learn viral gene transfer techniques. In 2005 he returned to AO Research Institute Davos, where he became Principal Scientist and Focus Area Leader in 2009. He is a lecturer at the ETH Zürich and in 2015 he was awarded a Professorship from the Medical Faculty of the Albert-Ludwigs University, Freiburg, Germany. In 2016 he was awarded an Honorary Professorship at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Keele, UK. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and a fellow member of the International Cartilage Regeneration & Joint preservation Society. In 2020 he received the TERMIS-EU Mid-Term Career Award. In 2021 he was inducted as a Fellow of international combined orthopaedic research societies (ICORS).

His main focus is the use of autologous MSCs and mechanoregulation for the repair of musculoskeletal tissues using a cell therapy approach. To this aim he investigates novel human cell identification and isolation methods with the aim to identify cause of donor variation. His research interests include the mechano-regulation of progenitor cell fate, in particular chondrogenic differentiation. This has led to advances in regenerative rehabilitation and the discovery of novel clinically relevant biomarkers and targets. He is also interested in the mechanisms by which progenitor cells direct cell fate and interact with endogenous cells to effect a repair.

He is the author of over 150 scientific papers and book chapters, is the editor of three books and has 2 accepted patents.  He is the chair of the LearnORS Committee of the ORS, member-at-large for the TERMIS EU Continental Council, a member of the ICORS Steering Committee and member of the International Consortium for Regenerative Rehabilitation Leadership Council. He is an editor or associate editor for multiple journals, including Associate Editor, Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology and scientific editor for eCM Journal. He is the conference chair of the yearly eCM Conference.