Recently published in the Journal of Cerebral Blood and Metabolism, the article entitled “Physical therapy exerts sub-additive and suppressive effects on intracerebral neural stem cell implantation in a rat model of stroke” investigates how physical therapy affects neural stem cells implanted into stroke damage. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members and collaborative authors on this work are Michel Modo, PhD, Professor in the Department of Radiology at the University of Pittsburgh, and Fabrisia Ambrosio, PhD, MPT, Director of Rehabilitation for UPMC International and an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at the University of Pittsburgh. Read More

Positive acute and long-term interim results from the first 500 pulmonary embolism (“PE”) patients enrolled in the FlowTriever Outcomes Registry (“FLASH”) were presented at TCT 2021 by Principal Investigator, Catalin Toma, MD, an Interventional Cardiologist at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and an affiliated faculty member of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Read More

McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Michael Lotze, MD, was honored with the 2021 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Lifetime Achievement Award at the SITC 36th Annual Meeting, Nov. 10-14, in Washington D.C. SITC is a member-driven organization dedicated to improving cancer patient outcomes by advancing the science and application of cancer immunotherapy through educational programs that foster scientific exchange and collaboration. Read More

When a child has cancer, their parents are rightfully focused on a cure. But that cure can come at a future cost: infertility. Read More

Over $1.6 million has been received from the NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for the 5-year Cardiothoracic Surgery Research Training Program. This research training grant is focused on the next generation of academic cardiac and thoracic surgeons and will be led by the following team which includes four McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members: Read More

LyGenesis is a clinical-stage biotechnology company whose cell therapies use patients’ lymph nodes as bioreactors to regrow functioning ectopic organs. LyGenesis’s lead allogeneic cell therapy program is currently in a Phase 2a clinical trial for patients with end stage liver disease. LyGenesis was built on nearly a decade of groundbreaking academic research by McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member Eric Lagasse, PharmD, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh and LyGenesis Founder and Chief Scientific Officer. Read More

November 2021 | VOL. 20, NO. 10| www.McGowan.pitt.edu

Hemolung Respiratory Assist System Receives FDA De Novo Clearance

ALung Technologies, Inc., the leading provider of low-flow extracorporeal carbon dioxide removal (ECCO2R) technologies for treating patients with acute respiratory failure, announced that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted the company De Novo clearance for the Hemolung Respiratory Assist System. This system was developed  at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine by a team of researchers led by faculty member William Federspiel, PhD, the company’s cofounder and professor of bioengineering, chemical engineering, critical care medicine, and the Clinical Translation Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Federspiel is also the director of the Medical Devices Laboratory at the McGowan Institute. Read More

Maddie Cramer, a doctoral student in the Bioengineering Department at the University of Pittsburgh and a team member in the laboratory of Stephen Badylak, DVM, PhD, MD, will receive the Outstanding Student Award from TERMIS-AA. Dr. Badylak is a deputy director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, professor in the Department of Surgery, and director of the Center for Pre-Clinical Tissue Engineering within the Institute. Read More

During the Magee-Womens Summit, the Magee-Womens Research Institute (MWRI) awarded the $1 million Magee Prize to an international team led by McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Pamela Moalli, MD, PhD, director of urogynecology and pelvic reconstruction surgery at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital and MWRI. The team is working to develop new biomaterials to repair tissue loss in women with compromised vaginal structure and function. Read More

Author: Judy D. Day, Soojin Park, Benjamin L. Ranard, Harinder Singh, Carson C. Chow, and Yoram Vodovotz Read More

Program Director: James Luketich

Co-PDs: Julie Phillippi and David Vorp

Title: Cardiothoracic Surgery Research Training Program Read More

A great need currently exists for medical devices designed specifically for children.

Pediatric Device Innovators Forum (PDIF) is a recurring collaborative educational experience designed to connect and foster synergy among innovators across the technology development ecosystem who are interested in pediatric medical device development. Read More

ALung Technologies, Inc., the leading provider of low-flow extracorporeal carbon dioxide removal (ECCO2R) technologies for treating patients with acute respiratory failure, announced that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted the company De Novo clearance for the Hemolung Respiratory Assist System. This system was developed  at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine by a team of researchers led by faculty member William Federspiel, PhD, the company’s cofounder and professor of bioengineering, chemical engineering, critical care medicine, and the Clinical Translation Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Federspiel is also the director of the Medical Devices Laboratory at the McGowan Institute. Read More

From the author of the GI Bill of Rights to a former Army Surgeon General, veterans have shaped the trajectory of the University of Pittsburgh — and the world. As Pitt honored those who have served this Veterans Day, the Office of Veterans Services and Archives and Special Collections highlighted veterans from the 20th and 21st centuries who have made a major difference in Pitt’s history. Three of those veterans are McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members. Read More

Eighteen faculty members in the natural sciences departments in the University of Pittsburgh’s Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences were recently awarded the Discipline-based Science Education Research (dB-SERC) Leader Award. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Burhan Gharaibeh, PhD, faculty member in the Department of Biological Sciences and an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh, is one of the awardees. Read More

By combining computational and experimental approaches, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Prairie View A&M University researchers identified cancer drugs that show promise for treating pulmonary hypertension, or PH, a rare and incurable lung disease. Read More

CATER Trainee Michael Behrens defended his dissertation on Tuesday, November 9, 2021. The presentation was titled, “Engineering Automated Microrobotic Systems with Machine Learning-Based Control for Biomedical Applications.” The CATER Program would like congratulate Michael, and we wish him much success for his future! Read More

With global rates of male infertility continuing to rise, a new study in spermatogonial stem cell research led by researchers at the University of Georgia (UGA) provides hope for future clinical therapies. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members Kyle Orwig, PhD, Professor, OB/GYN and Reproductive Sciences, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, with secondary appointments in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Developmental Biology, and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and the founding Director of the Fertility Preservation Program of UPMC and the UPMC Magee Center for Reproduction and Transplantation, and Gerald Schatten, PhD, Director of the Pittsburgh Development Center, Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Cell Biology, Bioengineering and Director of the Division of Developmental and Regenerative Medicine, are collaborators on this work. Read More

Soft tissue injuries — like rotator cuff tears or hip impingement — are fairly common, particularly among athletes and older populations. These injuries frequently require surgery where multiple suture anchors are inserted into the bone, providing a strong base through which a suture can be threaded to reattach tendons and ligaments. Read More

McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member and Carnegie Mellon University Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor, Elizabeth Wayne, PhD, has been awarded an NIH R35 grant, otherwise known as the Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA), providing her with $1.7 million in funding over five years. Read More

Most cells throughout the body can divide and multiply to replace old cells and repair damaged tissue, but in response to certain stresses, cells can lose their ability to proliferate. These so-called senescent cells accumulate with age and may contribute to cancer and age-related disorders, such as chronic lung disease, cardiovascular disease, frailty, and dementia, by pumping out signals that damage neighboring tissues. Read More

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), the world’s largest group of board-certified plastic surgeons, named McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member J. Peter Rubin, MD, MBA, FACS, as its new president. Dr. Rubin took office in Atlanta at Plastic Surgery, The Meeting, the Society’s annual scientific meeting, and will serve for one year. Read More

A novel computational platform developed by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine identifies top-performing viral vectors that could deliver gene therapies to the retina with maximum efficiency and precision. Read More

The Pitt Innovation Challenge (PInCh®) is a program supported by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and designed to generate innovative solutions to challenging health problems by mitigating risk and providing financial and administrative support to move ideas forward. The PInCh program stimulates the translation of novel problem-focused research into the community by giving researchers a venue to be creative, develop new ideas, and work with people beyond their usual sphere of collaborators. PInCh provides funding and project management to help develop high-quality health science research that serves people and communities outside of the university. In 2021, the PInCH competition looked for answers to the following: What is your bold solution to a challenging health problem? Read More

The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), together with eight global collaborators representing over 50 countries and territories, recently announced the awardees of the 2021 Healthy Longevity Catalyst Awards. These awards are part of the Healthy Longevity Global Competition, a multiyear, multistage, and multimillion-dollar international competition seeking potential breakthrough innovations aiming to extend human health and function later in life. Read More

October 2021 | VOL. 20, NO. 10| www.McGowan.pitt.edu

Novel Gene Therapy Platform Speeds Search for Ways to Cure Blindness

A novel computational platform developed by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine identifies top-performing viral vectors that could deliver gene therapies to the retina with maximum efficiency and precision. Read More

PI: Andrew Duncan

Title: Mechanisms of Liver Regeneration Induced by Acetaminophen Toxicity

Description: Liver disorders affect 30 million people in the United States and are the country’s 10th leading cause of death. To improve liver disease treatments, a better understanding of hepatocyte biology is required. The liver contains diploid and polyploid hepatocytes, with polyploids comprising nearly 50% adult human and 90% adult mouse hepatocytes. The functional differences between diploid and polyploid hepatocytes are poorly understood. We previously demonstrated that diploid hepatocytes facilitate rapid liver regeneration, but it remains unknown how diploid and polyploid hepatocytes respond to drug-induced injury. Acetaminophen (APAP) is a common analgesic that can cause acute liver injury, resulting in liver failure and death when taken in excess. When APAP overdose causes extensive centrilobular hepatocyte death, the liver undergoes compensatory proliferation and recovers if the ratio of necrosis to regeneration is low. To investigate the role diploid and polyploid hepatocytes in vivo, we utilize E2f7 and E2f8 liver-specific knockout mice (LKO) where E2f7 and E2f8 are deleted during postnatal development; these mice are functionally normal through 6-9 months of age but are depleted of polyploid hepatocytes (LKO livers are >70% diploid). Preliminary studies indicate that LKO mice enriched with diploid hepatocytes are less damaged and recover faster from APAP injury than wild-type (WT) mice enriched with polyploid hepatocytes. The Grantee shall investigate mechanisms of liver injury and regeneration during APAP-induced liver injury and failure. This project shall determine ploidy-dependent and ploidy-independent mechanisms of liver repair and regeneration following APAP overdose. Read More

Author: Bilge E Öztürk, Molly E Johnson, Michael Kleyman, Serhan Turunç, Jing He, Sara Jabalameli, Zhouhuan Xi, Meike Visel, Valérie L Dufour, Simone Iwabe, Felipe Pompeo Marinho, Gustavo D Aguirre, José-Alain Sahel, David V Schaffer, Andreas R Pfenning, John G Flannery, William A Beltran, William R Stauffer, Leah C Byrne Read More

In the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the medical community turned to a century-old treatment: Take blood from recovered patients and give it to the sick. The hypothesis was that components in the so-called “convalescent plasma” that fought off the disease once could do it again, something that has worked in other diseases, such as Ebola. Read More

Among critically ill patients with acute kidney injury and treated with dialysis in the intensive care unit, if one could accurately predict early which patients will develop low blood pressure then effective treatments could be given. In a recently funded study, co-principal investigators McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Gilles Clermont, MD, Professor of Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, and Raghavan Murugan, MD, Professor of Critical Care Medicine at Pitt, and their team propose to develop and validate an artificial intelligence system that will predict low blood pressure even before it occurs and recommend correct treatment to clinicians.  McGowan Institute affiliated faculty member Robert Parker, PhD, Professor in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at Pitt, is a member of this team that will receive funding for an NIH grant proposal entitled “AI driven acute renal replacement therapy (AID-ART).” The award is for $2.9M and is for 4 years from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Read More

Procirca is a clinical healthcare services business focused on cardiovascular surgery, clinical neurophysiology, perioperative blood management, and clinical engineering. For more than 25 years, Procirca has led the way in bringing state-of-the-art technologies and therapies to market. As a wholly owned subsidiary of UPMC, Procirca’s clients worldwide have access to world-class academic resources, clinical research capabilities, and physician domain experts. The experience gained from the breadth and depth of its client base enables Procirca to design custom solutions which yield clinical and economic benefits. Read More

The ability to target and stimulate neurons brings a host of benefits including better understanding brain function and treating neurological diseases. Currently, state-of-the-art microelectrode arrays (MEAs) can stimulate neurons with high precision, but they lack cell-type specificity and require invasive implantation that can result in tissue damage—think stimulators used to help patients with tremors. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Tzahi Cohen-Karni, PhD, associate professor of materials science and engineering and biomedical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, and his team have been exploring new materials to allow remote photostimulation, or the use of light to stimulate cells. Read More

On its face, agriculture seems simple: crops need water, sunlight, and soil to grow. The soil that crops are planted in, however, is complex. In order for plants to thrive, fertile soil requires a variety of elements that can become depleted over time, including nitrogen. Read More

Often inaccurately hyped up as the “pleasure molecule,” dopamine is implicated more in “pursuing” than producing pleasure, explains Rabeea Saleem in her article for The National. For example, if you enjoy a sugar rush, dopamine is responsible for motivating you to seek a cupcake to satisfy your cravings, rather than the actual rush. She spoke with McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Zachary Freyberg, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Cell Biology at the University of Pittsburgh, for her article. Read More

McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Neill Turner, PhD, is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. At the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, he specialized in tissue engineering of vascular grafts using endothelial cells. He then did post-graduate work at the UK Centre for Tissue Engineering, University of Manchester, before he became a Research Associate in the Badylak Lab at the McGowan Institute, where he researches regenerative medicine approaches to repair musculoskeletal injuries.  Dr. Turner is investigating the role of decellularized extracellular matrix in limb and muscle regeneration. He has extensive experience studying vascular biology, cardiovascular tissue engineering, and the development of decellularized tissues and ECM-based implants. Read More

A person suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) endures the progressive loss of muscle function throughout their body. Eventually, they lose the ability to control their limbs, to swallow, and even to speak. Their inability to communicate becomes a particularly devastating symptom of the illness. Other diseases can cause similar, debilitating impairment. Read More

Joseph Maggiore, current CATER student and MD/PhD candidate in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), has been selected to attend the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) Summit in Geneva, Switzerland with Dr. Samira Kiani, CATER Program Associate Director, and the Tomorrow.Life team. Tomorrow.Life, a UPMC Pitt Liver Research Center initiative, has partnered with GESDA to support the first GESDA Summit. Tomorrow.Life acts to engage the public through a variety of trusted messengers. The summit will include over 300 scientists, diplomats, business leaders, and philanthropists who will gather to drive reflective, responsible, inclusive and sustainable collaboration. Read More

There is growing evidence that cellular senescence plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of chronic liver diseases. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Michael Oertel, PhD, Associate Professor of Pathology, Division of Experimental Pathology, Department of Pathology, and a member of the Liver Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh, is a co-principal investigator on a project that will dissect the role of the activin A/p15INK4b axis in inducing senescence and how it impacts chronic liver disease progression. Uncovering mechanism(s) and identifying essential mediators of hepatocyte senescence will provide fundamental new information for developing novel therapeutic strategies to halt progression of chronic liver diseases. Read More

The lab of McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Samira Kiani, PhD, Associate Professor, Liver Research Center, Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, focuses on developing controllable genetic circuits by combining the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technology with design principles of synthetic biology. She and her team seek to precisely control the location, the timing or logic of function of Cas9 and multiple gRNAs so that they can develop safer and more controllable gene therapy platforms or employ the tools for sophisticated reprograming of cellular function and fate. Read More

The rise of 3D printing has transformed the manufacturing industry, enabling manufacturers to quickly, and precisely, create specialized parts for any application. Numerous applications are envisaged for this technology, ranging from flexible electronics, soft robotics, architected materials, and biological tissues. Read More