The National Basketball Association and GE Healthcare announced the six winning proposals for the first round of their Sports Medicine and Orthopedics Collaboration research on musculoskeletal injuries, affecting NBA players and the general public.
The NBA and GE Healthcare partnership, which began in July, called in November for first round research proposals that focused on tendinopathy, a tendon disease commonly found in basketball players and other athletes.
“The NBA is pleased to work with GE Healthcare to fund additional research in this area to increase our understanding of this condition as we seek to improve health outcomes and limit the impact on athletic performance for NBA players and the general population, the NBA’s Director of Sports Medicine Dr. John DiFiori said.
The collaboration will fund the six awardees a total of $1.5 million over a period of three years to support the research. The amount of money for each researcher depends on the research proposal and grant funding requests.
GE Healthcare teams, headed by GE executives John Sabol and Kelly Piacsek, will manage the research progress at the corporation’s Wauwatosa and Waukesha locations.
According to Sabol, some research teams will conduct research using GE’s advanced ultrasound and MRI technology at both nearby locations.
“The outcome of the research will not only impact basketball players but other athletes and also occupational workers and others suffering from tendon issues,” Sabol said.
Dr. Kenneth Lee of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his research team are among the six awardees, selected from a group of almost 70.
Working with college basketball players, Lee will research the impact of non-surgical treatment for patellar tendinopathy using comparative control studies and new MRI and ultrasound imaging techniques.
Other winners include research teams from La Trobe University, University of Calgary, Hospital for Special Surgery and Erasmus University Medical Center.
“Selection of the winning projects was a challenging task, relying on an independent scientific review panel of 22 academic and clinical experts to evaluate the scientific merit of the submitted research projects,” Sabol said.
The NBA/GE Healthcare Collaboration will call for a second round of research proposals on myotendinous injuries in early June, tentatively.
Future rounds of research will focus on bone stress injury, articular cartilage injury and other musculoskeletal issues in future calls for research proposals.
