Steve Messier

Dr. Messier is Professor and Director of the J.B Snow Biomechanics Laboratory at Wake Forest University. He has been at Wake Forest for 42 years and has 32 years of experience in clinical trials research specifically related to knee osteoarthritis (OA). He has received the lifetime achievement award from the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (2022), the Borelli Award from the American Society of Biomechanics (2020) for outstanding career accomplishment through exemplary research in biomechanics, and the career achievement award from the American College of Sports Medicine Biomechanics Group (2009). He has published over 125 original manuscripts including 20 over the past 5 years. He and his OA research team are well known for their work on the effects of exercise and weight loss on gait, strength, function, and pain in knee OA.

Dr. Messier is currently the principal investigator of the multi-center The Osteoarthritis Prevention Study (TOPS). TOPS is a primary prevention intervention trial of dietary weight loss, exercise, and weight-loss maintenance for females (N = 1230) at risk for the development of knee osteoarthritis designed to reduce incident structural and symptomatic knee osteoarthritis. Previously, Dr. Messier was the co-principal investigator of the Fitness Arthritis in Seniors Trial (FAST), the principal investigator of the Arthritis Diet and Activity Promotion Trial (ADAPT), the Intensive Diet and Exercise for Arthritis (IDEA) study, the Strength Training for Arthritis Trial (START), and the Weight loss and Exercise for Communities with Arthritis in North Carolina (WE-CAN). WE-CAN was a pragmatic randomized clinical trial of 823 older adults with knee OA, and overweight and obesity that is designed to determine if the diet and exercise intervention implemented in a highly controlled efficacy trial (IDEA) could be successfully implemented in diverse community settings. These studies are funded with grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Arthritis Foundation, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Messier is also the director of the Wake Forest Runners’ Clinic that uses the skills of physical therapists, orthopedic surgeons, health psychologists, biostatisticians, and biomechanists to determine the causes of overuse injuries in runners.  Currently, he was the principal investigator of The Runners And Injury Longitudinal Study (TRAILS): Injury Recovery, and the Strength Training And Runners’ Study (STARS), both which were funded by the United States Army.

Dr. Messier was on the Board of Directors for the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) from 2014-2018, the leading scientific organization devoted exclusively to osteoarthritis. He is the past chair of the OARSI Fiscal Committee. He is an associate editor of Arthritis and Rheumatology, the official journal of the American College of Rheumatology.

Articles

• Winston Salem Journal Knee Pain August 2016
• Sticht Center on Aging – Vital News START Article Spring 2012
• Wake Forest News Center: Running research November 2010
• Wake Forest Magazine, One to One, Spring 2010 Spring 2010
• IDEA Winston Salem Journal February 2008
• Wake Forest Magazine Relentless June 2005

Videos

• ASB 2020 Borelli award winner, Keynote Presentation
  Title: Affecting the biomechanical osteoarthritis disease pathway with exercise and diet: A randomized clinical trial approach
• Intense Strength Training Does Not Ease Knee Pain, Study Finds – February 2021
• Beating Knee Osteoarthritis-April 2019
• A prospective look at the risk factors for overuse running injuries. Summer 2018
• Weight Loss & Joint Pain (Good Morning America) 2018
• Great Debate. Osteoarthritis Research Society International Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, NV  April 2017
• Faculty Recognition Video 2016
• Idea Study (WXII 12 News) 2013
• Idea Study (MyFox WGHP) 2013