The National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program is designed to ensure the vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce in the United States. The program recognizes and supports outstanding students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees.
A major milestone on its strategic mission to lead in sepsis diagnostics, Beckman Coulter recently announced that its Early Sepsis Indicator has received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Sepsis is a global healthcare crisis that affects more than 30 million people worldwide. The Early Sepsis Indicator is a first-of-its-kind, hematology-based cellular biomarker that is designed to help emergency department physicians identify patients with sepsis or at increased risk of developing sepsis.
Collaboration and competition are basic instincts among biological species, from the simplest single-celled organisms to reptiles, fish and primates, as well as humans. This dynamic behavior – the result of millions of years of evolution – is difficult to replicate in synthetic systems. However, chemical engineers at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering have recreated these responses in an environment of microscopic particles, sheets, and catalysts, effectively mimicking responses of feeding, fighting, and fleeing.
Carnegie Mellon University’s Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, PhD, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Dr. Matyjaszewski is an affiliated faculty member of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
A new bed transfer device makes life easier — and safer — for patients and caregivers. NextHealth, Inc., in partnership with McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Rory Cooper, PhD, and team members from University of Pittsburgh’s Human Engineering Research Laboratory (HERL), developed the AgileLife Transfer & Mobility System™ (“TMS”), the only “Zero Lift” transfer and repositioning system that affects better outcomes for immobile individuals, their families, caregivers and their providers through the continuum of care.
In her PittMed article, Elaine Vitone reviewed human performance optimization efforts by numerous University of Pittsburgh researchers and the results of their studies on the functioning of the human body. Included in her article were highlights from the work of McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members:
Responsive neurostimulation (RNS) treats epilepsy by detecting seizures and intervening with a jolt of electric current. Over time, most patients find their seizures become fewer and further between. Now, for the first time, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC—including McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member R. Mark Richardson, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurological surgery at Pitt’s School of Medicine and director of epilepsy and movement disorders surgery at UPMC—have a better understanding of why this happens.
As pioneers in the field of regenerative medicine, McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty and staff are both obligated and delighted to contribute to the growth of the field by participating in the career development of young scientists. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member Julie Phillippi, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, School of Medicine, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Bioengineering, Swanson School of Engineering, recently participated in a panel discussion for sophomore and junior girls from the Fox Chapel Area High School sponsored by the American Association of University Women (AAUW). Students were encouraged to interact with Dr. Phillippi and other panel experts in an effort to expand their horizons while considering career options.
In the years following bariatric surgery, a person’s overall eating behaviors and the amount of time spent watching television, playing video games and using a computer for recreation are a better indication of long-term weight loss success than specific weight control practices like counting calories.
Dr. Maria Simbra, Health Editor from Pittsburgh’s local CBS channel KDKA, recently visited the University of Pittsburgh’s Rehab Neural Engineering Lab for an update on the work being done with the sensorimotor microelectrode brain-machine interface and generating ‘touch’ sensations. She visited with Nathan Copeland who injured his spinal cord in a 2004 car accident, and he has been instrumental to the research in the lab.
The McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine Educational Outreach Program takes its researchers many places. Recently, McKnight Elementary School Science in McCandless, PA, held a science night for its students and families.
Starfish can repair injured arms and reptiles can regrow severed tails; from bacteria to humans, every species is capable of regeneration, albeit to variable extents. These functions help make species more resilient, but how can we apply the knowledge of these regenerative mechanisms to improve human health? The University of Pittsburgh Department of Bioengineering has been collaboratively working to address this question through research efforts in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
In a follow-up to the recent McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine Scientific Retreat Panel Discussion, “Hope vs. Hype of Stem Cell Therapy,” J. Peter Rubin, MD, Chair of the Department of Plastic Surgery, the UPMC Endowed Professor of Plastic Surgery, Director of UPMC Wound Healing Services, and Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh, was a guest on Pittsburgh’s NPR News Station WESA program, The Confluence.
In a major medical breakthrough, Tel Aviv University (TAU) researchers have ‘printed’ the world’s first 3D vascularized engineered heart using a patient’s own cells and biological materials. The engineered heart completely matches the immunological, cellular, biochemical and anatomical properties of the patient.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, PhD, J.C. Warner Professor of Natural Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University and served as the head of the Chemistry Department, has been admitted to the Australian Academy of Science as a Corresponding Member for his outstanding scientific contributions. His fundamental contributions have changed the face of free radical chemistry and polymer science.
William Federspiel, PhD, Head of the Scientific Advisory Board and co-founder of ALung Technologies, Inc., is the Director of the Medical Devices Laboratory, McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, where he is a William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, and Critical Care Medicine. ALung, a University of Pittsburgh spinout company, is the leading provider of low-flow extracorporeal carbon dioxide removal (ECCO2R) technologies for treating patients with acute respiratory failure. Currently, ALung is working on major milestones in its clinical trial programs of the Hemolung Respiratory Assist System (RAS). The Hemolung RAS was born from research efforts and technologies developed at the McGowan Institute.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Joseph Glorioso III, PhD, Co-founder, CODA Biotherapeutics, and Professor and Emeritus Chair, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, is working on a gene therapy approach for treating chronic pain. CODA is developing engineered neurotransmitter receptors that are activated exclusively by orally bioavailable drugs to control the activity of hyperexcitable neurons responsible for chronic neuropathic pain. The gene encoding the receptor is delivered to dysfunctional neurons by proprietary viral vectors that are optimized for robust and targeted gene transfer. Standard neurosurgical procedures are used to administer these viral vectors directly to the neurons to be controlled. Once expressed, the engineered receptor can be activated by the drug to modulate neuronal activity. This enables the selective, tunable and reversible regulation of the receptor – and hence cellular activity – based on the dosing regimen of the drug. CODA is engineering receptors to have exquisite sensitivity for the pharmacological activator, which should dramatically limit off-target side effects that plague many pharmaceutical treatments.
Katherine Malmo recently reported for PT in Motion the importance of physical therapy in the success of future regenerative medicine therapies. As regenerative medicine helps the body restore biological function lost to age, disease, injury, or congenital abnormality, it can be accomplished with the help of medical devices and organs, biomaterials, and cellular therapies. These latter treatment options need support through focused, personalized physical therapy to be successful.
New research from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center sheds light on how tumors use the body’s regulators of immunity for their own benefit. Published in Nature Immunology, the findings could be used to develop the next generation of immune therapies to fight various cancers. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member James Luketich, MD—Henry T. Bahnson Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, the Chairman, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, the Chief, Division of Thoracic and Foregut Surgery, the Director, Thoracic Surgical Oncology, the Co-Director, Lung Cancer Center, the Associate Director of Surgical Affairs, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, and the Director, Mark Ravitch/Leon C. Hirsh Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery—is a co-author on the paper.
Total pancreatectomy with islet autotransplantation (TPIAT) is a surgical procedure used to treat severe complications of chronic pancreatitis (CP) or very high risk of pancreatic cancer while reducing the risk of severe diabetes mellitus.
The 15th Annual Kadir Has Awards were held on Friday, March 22, 2019, in Istanbul, Turkey. Member of the Science Academy, Ivet Bahar, PhD, received the “Kadir Has” Outstanding Achievement Award for her contributions to the development of theoretical and computational models for explaining the functional dynamics of biomolecular systems as well as mentoring and teaching a new wave of scientists. She was presented with the award by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Kadir Has University, Mr. Nuri Has, the Kadir Has Foundation President, Mr. Can Has, and the President of Kadir Has University, Dr. Sondan Durukanoglu Feyiz.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Ipsita Banerjee, PhD, associate professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, is the recipient of the School’s 2019 Faculty Diversity Award.
Trevor Kickliter, a junior mechanical engineering student in the Swanson School of Engineering and a team member in the laboratory of McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member David Vorp, PhD, was selected as one of six undergraduate researchers to represent the University of Pittsburgh at the 2019 Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Meeting of the Minds Conference hosted by the University of Louisville, March 29-31, 2019. Mr. Kickliter presented his research on the use of adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADMSCs) as a promising alternative to traditional surgical therapy for an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA).
Pancreatic cancer is a grim diagnosis, with a five-year survival rate of less than 9 percent. To improve those odds, researchers at UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine sought genetic signatures in the largest study of its kind that could be used to better match drugs to patients and for early detection.
Do lymph nodes hold the key to regenerating failed organs?
Our body’s lymph nodes generally go unnoticed, unless they become swollen and painful in the fight against infection. They’re part of a body-wide system that quietly grows immune cells, circulates them to infection sites, and carries away waste.
This first-ever open-to-the-public session of the annual scientific retreat was organized by McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty members based on general questions they receive from the public almost on a daily basis. The purpose of the event is to provide an honest discussion with stem cell therapy and science communication experts on what is hope, what is hype, what is experimental, and what is therapeutic relative to various advertisements and promises regarding stem cells. The program’s conversation aims to sort out the alternative facts and the fake news surrounding the medical science of stem cells. Many factors determine the safety and efficacy of stem cell treatments. Simply put, you need the right cells, to the right patient, at the right time, in the right way. If scientists do not ensure the field of stem cells research is credible through good science and ethical practice, the field will quickly become unbelievable.
The McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine held its 2019 Scientific Retreat March 11-12, 2019. The focus was on peer-to-peer networking, and the retreat provided many opportunities to explore collaborative endeavors with other researchers, participating guests, and external partners who are working to bring regenerative medicine technologies to clinical use.
In the lab of McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine deputy director Stephen Badylak, DVM, PhD, MD, professor of surgery, University of Pittsburgh, and director of the Center for Pre-Clinical Tissue Engineering within the McGowan Institute, the major focus is the development of regenerative medicine strategies for tissue and organ replacement. The utilization of mammalian extracellular matrix (ECM), or its derivatives, as an inductive template for constructive remodeling of tissue is a common theme of most research activities.
The 23nd Annual Carnegie Science Awards celebration will be held on May 10, 2019, at Carnegie Science Center’s new PPG Science Pavilion during which time McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member William Federspiel, PhD will be presented with the Life Sciences Award for his tremendous work and its impact on the vitality in the region.
If you follow transplant news, you probably know the grim facts: Worldwide, there is an enormous and widening gap between the number of people who need transplant organs and the number of donor organs available. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), 20 people die every day waiting for a transplant. While UNOS and other organizations work to increase awareness and recruit more donors, researchers and doctors are working hard to find medical solutions that can help close that gap.
Pioneered at UPMC at the Center for Innovative Fetal Intervention at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital which is directed by McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Stephen Emery, MD, a new technique using microcoil embolization shows early promise in treating inoperable placental tumors.
McGowan Institute faculty member J. Peter Rubin, MD, professor and chair of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Plastic Surgery, and William R. Wagner, PhD, professor and director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, shared their optimism and concerns over the substantial expansion of stem cell-based therapies in an Op Ed published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on March 10, 2019.
Nine patients at Penn Medicine have been cured of the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) following lifesaving heart transplants from deceased donors who were infected with the disease, according to a study published in the American Journal of Transplantation. The results highlight the potential for expanding the use of HCV-infected organs, including hearts, to broaden the donor pool for the more than 100,000 Americans currently on a transplant waitlist. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Christian Bermudez, MD, Director of Thoracic Transplantation at the University of Pennsylvania and Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, was a team member on the study.
Congratulations to McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members Tzahi Cohen-Karni, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), and Kathryn Whitehead, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at CMU, who have been awarded the 2019 Dean’s Early Career Fellowships for cutting-edge innovations in their fields and outstanding contributions to the college and university. Dean’s Early Career Fellowships are awarded to untenured faculty members who have been nominated by their department heads and then selected to receive the fellowship after review and discussion of the nomination package by the CIT Review Committee.
The Peripartum Cardiomyopathy Network (PCN) is a network of physicians and nurses at clinical sites across the United States and Canada dedicated to both clinical care and investigation of peripartum cardiomyopathy. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Dennis McNamara, MD, Professor of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh and the Director of the Heart Failure/Transplantation Program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, is a co-director of PCN.
Neural stimulation is a developing technology that has beneficial therapeutic effects in neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease. While many advancements have been made, the implanted devices deteriorate over time and cause scarring in neural tissue. In a recently published paper, McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Takashi Kozai, PhD, an assistant professor of bioengineering in the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, detailed a less invasive method of stimulation that would use an untethered, ultra-small electrode activated by light, a technique that may mitigate damage done by current methods.
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Biomedical Engineering (BME) PhD student Saigopalakrishna “Sai” Yerneni, co-advised by McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members Phil Campbell, PhD, Research Professor at the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (School of Engineering) at CMU, and Lee Weiss, PhD, Emeritus Research Professor, CMU, is the recipient of a competitive 2019 Young Investigator Award and Scholarship from the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) for his work on extracellular vesicles in host-pathogen interactions. As a part of the award, he will be giving a talk at the ISEV 2019 annual meeting in Kyoto, Japan.
The Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (MTEC) has named McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Ron Poropatich, MD, one of its newest board members. MTEC is a 501(c)(3) biomedical technology consortium collaborating under an Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) with the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) that serves those who serve our nation. In partnership with the Department of Defense (DoD) and private support, MTEC is working to prevent injuries and accelerate the development of revolutionary medical solutions that will enhance wound healing and return the wounded to fully functioning lives. Ultimately, all citizens will benefit from these technologies and health care solutions.
Our cells sometimes have to squeeze through pretty tight spaces. And when they do, the nuclei inside must go along for the ride. Using super-sensitive microscopic imaging, a team of scientists from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University have made a fundamental biological discovery that explains the structure of the nuclear envelope and gives tantalizing clues as to how cells squish through narrow openings without springing a leak.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Adam Feinberg, PhD, Associate Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, has been elected to the Leadership Advisory Committee (LAC) for the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI).
