Martin Stoddart

Prof Martin Stoddart has been ARI Vice Director since 2025 and the Regenerative Orthopaedics Program leader since 2020. He is also Progenitor Cell Biology Focus Area Leader. Prof Stoddart represents ARI at the AOCMF R&D Commission.

He completed his bachelor studies in Biology at the University of Aberystwyth in 1995. He then spent a year in Davos at AO Research Institute Davos where he completed his MPhil in Cartilage Biology. Between 1996–2000 he completed his doctoral thesis at the University of Nottingham in the field of Cancer Angiogenesis. He then returned to Switzerland to work in the Laboratory for Experimental Cartilage Research in Zürich, initially as a postdoctoral researcher and between 2003–2005 as Group Head. During that time, he also took a six-month sabbatical at the Centre for Molecular Orthopaedics, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, to learn viral gene transfer techniques. In 2005 he returned to AO Research Institute Davos, where he became Principal Scientist and Focus Area Leader in 2009. He is a lecturer at the ETH Zürich and in 2015 he was awarded a Professorship from the Medical Faculty of the Albert-Ludwigs University, Freiburg, Germany. In 2016 he was awarded an Honorary Professorship at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Keele, UK. In 2025 he became Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and a fellow member of the International Cartilage Regeneration & Joint Preservation Society. In 2020 he received the TERMIS-EU Mid-Term Career Award. In 2021 he was inducted as a Fellow of the International Combined Orthopaedic Research Societies (ICORS). In 2026 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Aberystwyth.

His main focus is the use of autologous MSCs and mechanoregulation for the repair of musculoskeletal tissues using a cell therapy approach. To this aim he investigates novel human cell identification and isolation methods with the aim to identify cause of donor variation. His research interests include the mechano-regulation of progenitor cell fate, in particular chondrogenic differentiation. This has led to advances in regenerative rehabilitation and the discovery of novel clinically relevant biomarkers and targets. He is also interested in the mechanisms by which progenitor cells direct cell fate and interact with endogenous cells to effect a repair.

He is the author of over 200 scientific papers and book chapters, is the editor of three books and has 3 accepted patents. He is the Education Council Chair on the Board of Directors in the ORS, member-at-large for the TERMIS EU Continental Council, a member of the ICORS Steering Committee, where he is also Chair of the FIORS college. He is Editor in Chief for eCM Journal and an editor or associate editor for multiple journals. He is the conference chair of the yearly ARI Orthopaedics Conference.