Greenwich Hand Surgeon Receives Prestigious Award for His Research

Dr. Scott Wolfe received the Kappa Delta Elizabeth Winston Lanier Award, which is presented to investigators who make key discoveries leading to major advances in the field of orthopedics. Dr. Wolfe, who sees patients at the Hospital for Special Surgery Outpatient Center in Stamford, was honored at a ceremony at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons annual meeting.

Dr. Wolfe’s research, spanning almost three decades, has advanced the understanding of wrist kinematics, which describes the wrist motions necessary to carry out a wide range of activities. “Macro-kinematics studies how the hand moves in space in relation to one’s forearm, while micro-kinematics focuses on how any one or several of the eight bones in the wrist move during a particular activity,” says Dr. Wolfe, who is chief emeritus of the Hand and Upper Extremity Service at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.

Collaborating with his research colleague, Joseph (Trey) Crisco, Ph.D., Dr. Wolfe sought to gain a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of wrist movement with the goal of developing new and better treatments for arthritis and other wrist injuries. Dr. Crisco, with whom Dr. Wolfe shares the Kappa Delta Award, is director of the Bioengineering Laboratory in the Department of Orthopaedics at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital.

“Receiving the Kappa Delta Award is an incredible honor, representing to us an endorsement of our decades of work together and the importance of this work to patient care,” Dr. Wolfe said. “We are honored and humbled that the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons chose our work to receive this award, particularly when considering the ‘giants’ of orthopedic surgery who have preceded us and our many colleagues who are currently doing incredible work in so many fields of orthopedic surgery.”

The wrist is the most complex joint in the human body. Wrist arthritis, affecting up to 4.8 million Americans, is one of the most common and debilitating conditions treated by hand surgeons. Although current surgical interventions can alleviate arthritis pain, wrist motion and the ability to perform certain activities are often limited after surgery.

Drs. Wolfe and Crisco have received approximately $10 million dollars in funding from the National Institutes of Health for their work over the past 27 years.

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