Skip Rochefort knows about back pain — several years ago he ruptured a disk while running.

The condition is potentially serious, sometimes leading to paralysis. Surgical treatments are invasive and can result in reduced range of motion. Prosthetic disks are available, but sometimes the patient’s body rejects them.

Now, with the help of a grant from the John C. Erkkila, M.D., Endowment for Health and Human Performance, Rochefort is working on a different approach to the problem.

An associate professor of chemical engineering at Oregon State University, Rochefort is partnering with his colleague Brian Bay, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and Becky Bader, a doctoral student in materials science, to develop a new kind of hydrogel. The synthetic material would replace a gelatinous fluid called nucleus pulposus that oozes out when a spinal disk ruptures.

The idea is to inject the synthetic fluid into the damaged disk, where it would firm up enough to restore lost cushioning and elasticity to the spine and relieve painful pressure on the nerves. If it works, it would provide a nonsurgical treatment for a problem that afflicts millions.

“This is something that’s really hot in the neurosurgical clinical and research literature,” said Dr. John Erkkila, an orthopedic surgeon with The Corvallis Clinic and the endowment’s namesake. “This would be a major leap forward in medicine.”

The endowment awarded Rochefort’s team $14,605 to pursue its idea.

“Hydrogel is basically Jell-O,” Rochefort said, about 98 percent water with a binding agent to hold the fluid together.

The group will spend the next year testing various synthetic hydrogel formulations, looking for candidates that effectively mimic the behavior of natural nucleus pulposus.

“We got some sheep nucleus pulposus from the vet school and checked the properties of that, and now we’re looking to match those,” Rochefort said. “At the end of that time, we’re hoping to have some materials that look very promising.”

The next stage would be to seek additional funding for safety and efficacy tests in animals and humans. Ultimately, the result could be a lucrative new medical technology.

While other researchers are working along similar lines, Rochefort said, they haven’t been completely successful.

“I don’t think there’s anything out there right now that meets all the specs you want,” he said.

The project was one of three funded this year by the Erkkila Endowment.

Vicki Ebbeck and Tucker Readdy of OSU’s Department of Exercise and Sports Science received $12,963 to study obsessive-compulsive symptoms among fitness fanatics, and Jeffrey Widrick of the Department of Nutrition and Exercise got $11,211 to evaluate the effect of warm-up routines on preventing injury.

Established in 1994 with money donated by the late Ralph Hull, longtime owner of the Hull-Oakes Lumber Mill in Dawson, the Erkkila endowment each year finances various projects intended to improve health and fitness.

Both the number of grants and the total amount of money awarded were down this year. Last year, for instance, the endowment awarded $61,032 in grants to six projects. In 2002, 10 projects received $80,043 in funding.

A major reason for the drop in funding was a decline in the endowment’s investment earnings, Erkkila explained.

“The market has not been great,” Erkkila noted.

The endowment is set up to give away up to 90 percent of annual earnings based on a three-year rolling average, Erkkila said. With the lackluster returns of recent years, the endowment had begun to shrink, so this year the directors decided to cut back on grants to shore up the body of the fund, which had fallen as low as $700,000 and has not yet bounced back to its original $1 million.

“Part of the original intent was that the corpus would continue to grow so we could at least keep up with inflation,” Erkkila said.