Professor Jeffrey Lotz, Ph.D. is the David S. Bradford M.D. Endowed Chair in Orthopaedic Surgery and Vice Chair of Orthopaedic Research at UCSF. He has led the Orthopaedic Tissue Engineering Laboratory at UCSF since 1992, and is the principal investigator of one of the three Mechanistic Research Centers funded through the NIH Back Pain Consortium (BACPAC) Research Program (under NIH HEAL). BACPAC is a translational, patient-centered effort to address the need for effective and personalized therapies for chronic low back pain. Dr. Lotz is also co-director of two other research centers, including the NIDCR-funded Center for Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Tissue and Organ Regeneration (C-DOCTOR, and the NSF-funded Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (CDMI). Dr. Lotz has expertise in spine biomechanics, intervertebral disc biology, and tissue engineering. His laboratory work focuses on identifying mechanisms of disc degeneration, developing novel diagnostics and therapies for low back pain, and the biomechanics of spinal instrumentation. Dr. Lotz earned a doctorate in Medical Engineering from the Harvard/MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, a Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering Design from Stanford University, and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley.