Howard S. An

Howard S. An is a Senior Professor at Rush University, where his research focuses on orthopaedic and spine surgery, spinal cord medicine, lumbar spine pathology, spinal fusion, and rehabilitation. His recent work explores intervertebral disc degeneration mechanisms, including the β-catenin/CCL2 pathway in Sox9 conditional knockout mice, and the gut microbiome’s association with lumbar degenerative spondylolisthesis. He has published clinical trials on NF-kappa B oligo DNA decoys for chronic discogenic low back pain, blood biomarkers for Modic changes, and risk factors for adjacent segment degeneration after lumbar fusion. His investigations also address disc herniation resorption and outcomes following decompression for lumbar facet cysts.