Applied Spinal Biomechanical Engineering

The Aragona Spinal Biomechanical Engineering Research Laboratories, Inc., was founded in the mid 1970s. Its primary foundation was based on elaborate cadaver research with respect to vertebral column anomalies, developmental defects and other coefficients supporting chiropractic care as it relates to vertebral subluxation instabilities.

Dr. Ronald J. Aragona founded the research laboratories following his participation as a member of the International Chiropractors Association Research Committee from 1972 through 1978. Its purpose was to support the necessity for chiropractic care and to remove the difficulties in obtaining adequate clinical results toward correction, reduction and stabilization of coefficients of vertebral subluxation.

The original research prompted Dr. Aragona to investigate abnormal or eccentric patterns of motion instability of various spinal sections, as well as to classify normal reactive coupling motion of the cervical, thoracic and lumbar/lumbosacral spine.

This research led to the science of Applied Spinal Biomechanical Engineering (A.S.B.E.), which has more than 800 indexed methods and procedures directed toward provoking stability in an otherwise unstable spine. David Borges, D.C., F.A.S.B.E. is currently teaching ASBE for the International Chiropractic Association of California for license renewal credits. For ASBE SEMINAR INFORMATION go to Borges Chiropractic Web Site


The main service that the Applied Spinal Biomechanical Research Laboratories, Inc., provides is postgraduate education courses in diagnostic and therapeutic methods and procedures to assist the spinal specialist toward provoking restoration of normal spinal function.

Subsequently, an auxiliary organization has been formed as The American Academy of Clinical Applied Spinal Biomechanical Engineering. The Academy has an enrollment of several thousand practitioners who are working toward Fellowship in Applied Spinal Biomechanical Engineering and Board Certification.

Members of the Academy and students of A.S.B.E. enjoy the benefits of validating the necessity for chiropractic spinal adjustments, as well as utilizing methods and procedures to substantiate their diagnosis as it relates to various vertebral subluxation instability syndromes which manifest in their patients. The Academy offers, through its members, a remarkable advantage over other methods and procedures -- primarily a scientific approach toward restoration of spinal dysfunction syndromes.

Another benefit is the camaraderie that exists between Board Certified Fellow Candidates and Fellows through various Academy state councils and their peer review committees and experts, regarding methods and procedures and specialty.

Dr. Aragona takes special pride in student members of the Academy, because of their renewed enthusiasm toward chiropractic and their desire to assist the chiropractic profession in formulating standards for practice, based on the scientific methods and procedures of Applied Spinal Biomechanical Engineering. Today, the Academy has an enrollment substantially larger than that of any other chiropractic college.

The Academy offers a service to members of providing a full spinal evaluation with prescriptive methods and procedures to improve their health and welfare. Also, the Academy has maintained a health service for numerous practitioners who were otherwise proclaimed either partially disabled or totally disabled and were to retire from practice.

The Academy makes available to its members, several thousands of pages of research and textbook notes on early research discoveries of the laboratory, as well as methods and procedures clinically provoking stability to otherwise failed spinal dysfunction syndromes.

Dr. Aragona received his Ph.D. in Spinal Biomechanics from Columbia Pacific University, San Rafael, California, in 1986, based on 12 volumes of A.S.B.E. research discoveries. Columbia Pacific University was founded in 1978 by two longtime university administrators and a Harvard educated psychiatrist. The degrees conferred by CPU (from 1978 to 1997) are recognized by the state of California as legal and valid.

The most exciting aspect of Applied Spinal Biomechanical Engineering is that doctors discover how little they knew before they started learning these methods and procedures. With this scientific work incorporated in their clinical setting, a new enthusiasm manifests. Practitioners are no longer bored with methods and procedures. They are continuously learning and providing a better service to humanity.