Dr. Pacificis biomedical research work focuses on mechanisms controlling skeletal development and growth in fetal and postnatal life. Emphasis is on identification of molecular regulators acting at the nuclear levels that direct commitment; determination and differentiation of progenitor skeletal cells. Overall goal is to target those regulators using gene-; cell- and drug-based therapies to treat skeletal pathologies including congenital skeletal malformations or growth defects and acquired conditions such as heterotopic ossification. Emphasis is also on signaling diffusible factors that normally act within developing skeletal elements to coordinate growth and morphogenesis. When these factors escape skeletal tissues and affect adjacent non-skeletal tissues due to failure of restraining mechanisms; they can trigger pathologies; including hereditary multiple exostoses. Experimental therapies are being tested to restore normal factor-restraining mechanisms and block or reverse those pathologies. Dr. Pacifici received a doctorate degree in Developmental Biology from the University of Rome. He was awarded a European Molecular Biology Fellowship at the end of which he was appointed Assistant Professor at the University of Rome School of Medicine. He then joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania first in the School of Medicine and subsequently in the School of Dental Medicine where he rose to the rank of Professor in 1997. He joined the faculty of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University in 2003 where he served as the Anthony F. and Gertrude M. De Palma Professor and Director of the Division of Orthopaedic Research. In 2011; Dr. Pacifici was recruited by the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia Division of Orthopaedic Surgery where he currently serves as Director of the Translational Research Program in Pediatric Orthopaedics. Dr. Pacificis biomedical research work has been funded continuously by the NIH for over 25 years.