Dr. Kenneth Lee is awarded a Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Research Seed Grant for “Acoustoelastography as an outcome measure for platelet-rich plasma injection treatment of chronic plantar fasciitis: a pilot study” by the RSNA Research & Education Foundation. The project is a multidisciplinary effort to study the ability of acoustoelastography, an ultrasound-based method, to measure the biomechanical changes of plantar fasciitis and correlate it to validated clinical outcome measures in response to therapy (platelet-rich plasma). Plantar fasciitis is the most common cause of inferior heel pain and disability among athletes, but also prevalent in the general population, affecting approximately 2 million Americans annually. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is a concentrated solution of autologous platelets increasingly used to treat chronic musculoskeletal conditions by augmenting the healing process at the site of tissue degeneration via the action of platelet-derived growth factors (PDGF). Positive results from the project will add to our understanding of the mechanism of degeneration and cause of pain, enabling future studies for other chronic musculoskeletal disease models such as tendinopathies, help to establish PRP as an innovative, cost-effective treatment alternative to surgery, and improve upon an US imaging-based tool to monitor disease modification changes that can closely correlate to clinical assessments of healing.