James L. Cook, DVM, PhD

University of Missouri – Columbia (MU)

Dr. James “Jimi” Cook serves the University of Missouri’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery as the William & Kathryn Allen Distinguished Chair in Orthopaedic Surgery, is Director of the Thompson Laboratory for Regenerative Orthopaedics (which he founded more than 20 years ago as the MU Comparative Orthopaedics Laboratory), is Chief of the Orthopaedic Research Division, and is Director of Operations & Research, Mizzou BioJoint Center. He is a co-author on more than 300 peer-reviewed publications and has received more than $28 million in external funding. His research areas of expertise include osteoarthritis, tissue engineering, sports medicine, biomarkers, biologic joint restoration strategies, in vitro and ex vivo models, meniscal replacement and regeneration, articular cartilage, and intervertebral disc disease. In 2021, he was awarded the Marshall R. Urist Award from the Orthopaedic Research Society to honor his cutting edge research career in tissue regeneration.