Academic Centre for Clinical Orthopaedics


Director: Professor David Marsh

Deputy Director: Mr Andrew Goldberg OBE

The Academic Centre Clinical Orthopaedics (ACCO) brings together one of the largest collection of orthopaedic surgeons, basic scientists, statisticians, methodologists and clinical trialists in Europe.

The Unit runs Translation Teams in many therapy areas from tendon disease, bone and cartilage injury, through to war wounds and fragility fractures. The Unit works hand in hand with the R&D Department at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital to provide clinical and research governance to the wealth of clinical projects emanating from UCL and the RNOH. These include randomised controlled trials in cartilage transplantation and of other surgical treatments such as Ankle Replacement versus Ankle Fusion. In addition, it runs several advanced therapy trials  (ATiMPs) in regenerative medicine, such as mesenchymal stem cells in a fracture non-union model (PACINO), or in Achilles Tendinopathy (ASCAT).

A partnership between academia, the NHS and industry to typify the academic health sciences centre model is illustrated by the Musculoskeletal Regenerative Medicine Steering Group (MRSG), which meets monthly to push forwards on the frontiers of regenerative medicine. Trials of Chondron, a form of cartilage transplantation in the knee and talus are ongoing led by the Clinical Centre for Cartilage Transplantation in association with RMS Innovations UK. The ACCO also leads at an international level on several areas of research, in particular in:

  • Cartilage Repair (cartilage transplantation and development of new models of repair including novel biomaterials)
  • Metabolic Bone Disease (relationship between subchondral bone and osteoarthritis; Drug exposure in utero; Vitamin D metabolism in osteoarthritis; and prevention of bone loss following spinal injury; pharmaceutically sponsored trials for novel agents in the management of postmenopausal osteoporosis, Paget's disease and osteoarthritis.)
  • Peripheral Nerve Injury (brachial plexus injury; Nerve tumours; Palliative upper limb surgery after central nervous lesion; and injuries to the lumbo-sacral plexus)
  • Development of new implants (eg intraosseous transamputation prosthesis (iTap) and the growing prosthesis in association with Stanmore Implants Worldwide)
  • Surgical Outcomes (an extensive programme of health service research into outcomes following surgery working closely with University of Oxford; University of East Anglia, and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)

If you would like to find out more please contact: m.lever@ucl.ac.uk

Page last modified on 24 may 12 10:41