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Dr. Deborah McK. Ciombor is Associate Professor of Orthopaedics (Research) and Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology and Biotechnology (Research). She is the Associate Director of the Center for Restorative and Regenerative Medicine, Providence VA Medical Center/Brown University.

Dr. Ciombor completed her BS in Biology at Brown University and PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Rhode Island in 1992. Dr. Ciombor began her research career studying the effects of physical stimuli on connective tissue, particularly electomagnetic fields. The work centered on the modulation of chondrocyte differentiation. She is currently examining the modulation of growth factor effects and the transduction of the physical signal from recognition to gene regulation. Recent work in the laboratory is focused on tissue engineering and the application of developmental biology to the production of cartilage biocomposites. She has been the co-director of the Duffy Cell Biology Laboratory at the Department of Orthopaedics at Rhode Island Hospital and Alpert Brown Medical School since 2001. The laboratory has been continuously funded through a combination of government, corporate and foundation grants.