Sibylle Grad, PhD, PD

AO Research Institute Davos, Switzerland

Sibylle Grad is a Principal Scientist at the AO Research Institute Davos (ARI), Switzerland. She is the deputy Program Leader of the Regenerative Orthopaedics Program and the focus area leader for intervertebral disc and cartilage research. Sibylle Grad obtained her PhD in Natural Sciences from the Department of Cell Biology of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETHZ), Switzerland. After completing her first post-doctoral training, she joined the AO Research Institute Davos to set up a cartilage bioreactor system. She has since then acquired extensive research expertise in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine with focus on cartilage and intervertebral disc repair and regeneration. Her projects include whole organ culture models and bioreactors for intervertebral disc disorders, cell therapy, molecular therapy, annulus fibrosus repair, circulating and tissue biomarkers; bioreactor loaded explant models for cartilage and osteochondral defects. Her expertise in advanced ex-vivo organ culture systems for studying both disease/ degeneration and repair/ regeneration in orthopedic research is widely acknowledged. Sibylle Grad is also a private docent with habilitation at the ETHZ and course leader in the graduate program of the ETH Department of Health Science and Technology. She has obtained funding from many national, European and international agencies, and has been section leader and partner of several collaborative projects. She is a co-organiser of the eCM Annual Conference and has served as Topic Chair, Spine section research chair, and program committee member of the Orthopaedic Research Society. Her publication list includes more than 115 peer-reviewed articles and 10 book chapters.