Michelle S Caird, MD

Dr. Michelle Caird is a Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Michigan in the Division of Pediatric Orthopaedics. She received an engineering degree from The University of Michigan, followed by medical school at The University of Michigan where she earned Alpha Omega Alpha honors. Dr. Caird completed her internship and residency in orthopaedic surgery at The University of Michigan, and fellowship training in Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Caird is Board Certified by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery.

Dr. Caird joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in 2004 at the completion of her fellowship. Clinically, she is a leading expert on multiple pediatric orthopaedic conditions, treating children with fractures, spinal deformity and unequal or bowed legs. She is the director of the U-M osteogenesis imperfecta multidisciplinary clinic, which cares for dozens of children and adults with the genetic disorder each year.

Dr. Caird is one of a handful of women in the U.S. to be appointed chair of an orthopaedic surgery department with a residency program.

Dr. Caird is one of ten 2015 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery Leadership Fellows. She is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America (POSNA) and represented POSNA in Northern Europe as one of the 2012 POSNA Traveling Fellows; where she studied and taught at major European centers.

* Orthopaedic Treatment of Diseases of Pediatric Low Bone Mass – Basic Science Research - Diseases of low bone mass like osteoporosis are commonly recognized and treated in elderly adults, but much remains unknown about these disorders in children. In the orthopaedic research laboratory I collaborate with Ken Kozloff PhD. We mechanically and histologically characterize the structure-function relationship in mouse models of pediatric low bone mass including a disuse model and the Brtl IV growing mouse model of osteogenesis imperfecta. We investigate how current antiresorptive and anabolic medications affect the bone properties and fracture healing. For use in these studies, we characterized a fluorescent bisphosphonate probe to trace delivery and retention of antiresorptive medications and are developing other imaging modalities.

* Orthopaedic Treatment of Osteogenesis Imperfecta – Clinical and Translational Research - In addition to the bench research described above, our OI research includes an arm to understand personalized medicine response to anabolic medications. Here we take discardable surgical samples of OI bone from children and implant them in nude mice which are treated in the lab with anabolics. We characterize the biologic response
of each person's bone in the mouse with a goal of better predicting the patient's response to the drug before systemic treatment. We have also created an OI multidisciplinary clinic with a research arm through which we have streamlined clinical care and discovered increased glaucoma risk in OI.

* Characterization and treatment of Cerebral Palsy Co-Morbidities and skeletal changes - In this cross-school collaboration with Edward Hurvitz MD, Mark Peterson PhD and Dan Whitney PhD from Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Maureen Devlin PhD from the Department of Anthropology we are investigating the changes in the musculoskeletal system and bone compartment in cerebral palsy (CP). We have characterized a high co-morbid condition phenotype in CP and pointed out parallels to early aging at an epidemiologic level. In addition, we are currently coupling this 10,000 foot view research with a very close up look at bone morphology and gene expression within the marrow compartment in these patients. Our goals are to improve understanding of burden of disease across the lifespan in order to help suggest and evaluate novel treatment methods and preventive measures for the pathologic musculoskeletal changes.