Current News

Today, the only cure for end-stage liver disease is an organ transplant – an expensive treatment, the demand for which outweighs the supply. Nearly 12,000 people in the U.S. are waiting for a liver as of July 2021. Read More

Allison Proffitt, for Bio-IT World, recently reported how innovative vision restoration/care and video gaming have merged.  Her article features her conversation with Edouard Gasser, CEO of Tilak, who speaks of his partnership with McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member José-Alain Sahel, MD, Chair and Distinguished Professor of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, director of the UPMC Eye Center, and the Eye and Ear Foundation Endowed Chair of Ophthalmology. Read More

Steven Wellman, a bioengineering PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, received a Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award (F99/K00) from the National Institutes of Health for his work with neural interfacing technology. These revolutionary devices have the potential to significantly advance our understanding of brain function and enable researchers to restore motor and sensory control lost from neurological disorders. Read More

Childbirth is a momentous and fraught time. For women, childbirth is one of the most significant biomechanical events in life – in terms of forces and motion, the body during childbirth is a structure stressed to extremes. Read More

Most able-bodied people take their ability to perform simple daily tasks for granted—when they reach for a warm mug of coffee, they can feel its weight and temperature and adjust their grip accordingly so that no liquid is spilled. People with full sensory and motor control of their arms and hands can feel that they’ve made contact with an object the instant they touch or grasp it, allowing them to start moving or lifting it with confidence. Read More

For centuries, people thought that blindness was incurable – once the darkness sets in, it never retreats. Unlike in fish and frogs, the human retina doesn’t regenerate, and the vision loss caused by damage to cells in the back of the eye – be it genetic or physical – can rarely be fixed. But new research suggests that regrowing the retina may not be science fiction after all. Read More

Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death in the United States and the contributing factor for one in every four deaths. An improved understanding of the mechanisms behind atherosclerosis, a common contributor to cardiovascular disease, may help guide new therapeutic strategies to combat this deadly disease. Read More

As much as 10% of the population develops some type of hernia during life.¹ More than 1 million abdominal hernia repairs are performed each year, with inguinal hernia repairs constituting nearly 800,000 of these cases.² According to a February 2012 Wall Street Journal article, more than 30% of patients may, unfortunately, suffer from long-term chronic pain and restricted movement after surgery to fix a hernia.³ Read More

In its July 2021 edition, Healthcare Radius e-magazine covered the acellular biologic scaffold treatment for volumetric muscle loss (VML) research led by McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine Deputy Director Stephen Badylak, DVM, PhD, MD, Professor in the Department of Surgery and Director of the Center for Pre-Clinical Tissue Engineering within the Institute. The article (pages 30-34) explained how VML is a severe and debilitating clinical medical problem and how Dr. Badylak’s team is helping to solve that problem. Read More

Scientists from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine described a new phenomenon in which the deletion of a single gene involved in liver embryogenesis completely wipes out bile ducts of newborn mice. But despite a major defect in their bile excretion system, those animals don’t die immediately after birth. Rather, they survive for up to eight months and remain physically active, if small and yellow-tinted. Read More

McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member Yoram Vodovotz, PhD, Professor in the Department of Surgery with secondary appointments in the Department of Computational & Systems Biology, the Department of Bioengineering, the Department of Immunology, the Department of Communication Science and Disorders (of the School of Health and Rehabilitation Science), and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and the Director of the Center for Inflammation and Regeneration Modeling at the McGowan Institute, is the Founding Field Chief Editor (editor-in-chief) of the Open Access journal, Frontiers in Systems Biology.  The Scope and Mission of this journal are: Read More

People with conditions that compromise their immune systems exhibit a wide spectrum of antibody responses to COVID-19 vaccination, ranging from only 1 in 5 lung transplant patients having an antibody response to a nearly complete response in patients with well-controlled HIV. The results are part of an interim analysis of a large study on UPMC patients and health care workers. Read More

Each year the Annals of Biomedical Engineering journal recognizes the article published in the journal that has the most citations for all papers published in the preceding year. For 2020, the winning paper is “Extracellular Matrix-Based Biomaterials and Their Influence Upon Cell Behavior” by Madeline C. Cramer and Stephen F. Badylak, DVM, PhD, MD. Dr. Badylak is a Deputy Director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, a Professor in the Department of Surgery, and Director of the Center for Pre-Clinical Tissue Engineering within the Institute. The award will be presented during the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) annual meeting, October 2021, with a $500 honorarium for the award. Read More

McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member Donna Stolz, PhD, Associate Director of the Center for Biologic Imaging, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and an Associate Professor in the Departments of Cell Biology and Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh, is a co-author on a study where it was found by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine neurologists that specialized immune cells that accumulate in the brain in the days and weeks after a stroke promote neural functions in mice, pointing to a potential immunotherapy that may boost recovery after the acute injury is over. Read More

An estimated two million people will need a coronary artery stent every year. A small mesh tube inserted into a narrow or blocked coronary artery, a stent can help ensure blood can continue to flow through the artery unimpeded. Today, many also contain a coating that releases a steady dose of medication to improve healing and keep the blockage from coming back. Read More

An earthquake in a major city, a bomb in a subway, a bus crash in rural town, COVID-19 pandemic hot zones — any event that overwhelms the capacity of available health care facilities is considered a mass casualty event. Lung damage and other internal injuries are particularly challenging to diagnose in multiple casualties during these events. Read More

Newsweek magazine, this year, for the first time, partnered with Statista Inc., the global market research and customer data firm, to find America’s Best Plastic Surgeons. The data was Read More

How wonderful would it be if you could deposit your skin cells at a medical facility and get an organ you need within weeks, ready to be transplanted? For decades, scientists have relentlessly worked to recapitulate functionally and physiologically relevant human organs in the lab. Some approaches rely on engineering an unfeasible number of genes in cells or on external cues like growth factors and mechanical signals. But these organs are far from overcoming the barriers of complexity, reproducibility, and time sensitivity, and are thus not ready to be applied in the real world. Read More

William Wagner, PhD, Director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Distinguished Professor of Surgery, Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, recently participated in the University of Pittsburgh’s TEDx 2021 (click for full program—Dr. Wagner is the last presenter).  Dr. Wagner highlighted the history of the McGowan Institute and also several current research efforts underway during his presentation. Read More

Ellen Gawalt, PhD, has been named interim dean of Duquesne University’s Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Sciences (BSNES), effective Thursday, July 1, 2021. She will step in for Philip Reeder, PhD, who will be rejoining the faculty to pursue his research. Read More

According to a report by Stanford University, 54 current McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members are in the top 2% of world scientists. The report covered scientists globally from a wide range of fields. The ranking is based on citations from Scopus, assessing scientists for career-long citation impact up until the end of 2019, and for citation impact during the single calendar year 2019. More information on the ranking method is found here. Read More

McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member Kacey Marra, PhD, Professor, Departments of Plastic Surgery and Bioengineering, Vice Chair of Research, Department of Plastic Surgery, recently was awarded a 2-year, $2,085,067 Department of Defense (DOD) Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (PRMRP), Technology/Therapeutic Development Award (TTDA) grant to obtain regulatory approval for her novel nerve guide.  This will provide funds to finish the necessary testing of the nerve guide to get approval for the first human clinical trial. The co-investigator is Anthony Windebank, MD, Professor of Neurology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, where the team will optimize the manufacturing process of the nerve guides under GMP conditions. Read More

Monoclonal antibodies, a COVID-19 treatment given early after coronavirus infection, cut the risk of hospitalization and death by 60% in those most likely to suffer complications of the disease, according to an analysis of UPMC patients who received the medication compared to similar patients who did not. Read More

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has funded a cooperative agreement with multiple organizations worth up to $33 million over four-and-a-half years to develop a wireless, fully implantable device that will control the body’s circadian clock, halving the time it takes to recover from disrupted sleep/wake cycles.  The project will be led by a Northwestern University team of researchers and includes McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members Douglas Weber, PhD, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), and Tzahi Cohen-Karni, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at CMU. Read More

DiFusion Technologies, Inc. recently announced landmark data for the company’s ZFUZE Surgical Polymer and how it compares to traditional biomaterials like Titanium and Poly-Ether-Ether-Ketone (PEEK). The data and the importance of the immune system response in new technologies such as ZFUZE were debated by Stephen Badylak, DVM, MD, PhD, Deputy Director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh, and Director of the Center for Pre-Clinical Tissue Engineering within the Institute, at the International Society for Advancement of Spine Surgery (ISASS) in late May 2021 in Miami.  Dr. Badylak is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of DiFusion Technologies, Inc. Read More

The Starzl Network for Excellence in Pediatric Transplantation led by UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has partnered with OmniLife to drive innovation around transplant graft selection and acceptance, specifically with the goal of reducing pediatric waitlist mortality. Read More

Recently, leaders of the Pennsylvania National Guard awarded McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Rory Cooper, PhD, FISA & Paralyzed Veterans of America Professor and Distinguished Professor of the Department of Rehabilitation Science & Technology, Professor of Bioengineering, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, and Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh, and Founding Director and VA Senior Research Career Scientist of the Human Engineering Research Laboratories (HERL), and Garrett Grindle, PhD, Associate Director for Engineering at HERL and a Research Scientist at the University of Pittsburgh, the Pennsylvania Veterans Service Award for their work protecting veterans and their caregivers during the pandemic. Read More

McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Victoria Webster-Wood, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering with a courtesy appointment in Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for her work on robotic design. Her research will focus on creating actuators for biohybrid robots using living muscle and controlling these actuators with neurons. Dr. Webster-Wood’s project uses animal-inspired designs to improve robotic mobility. She hopes that muscle-based robots will be more adaptable and self-healing. Her award also describes outreach programs to increase numbers of underrepresented groups in robotics. Read More

It is not every day that scientists come across a phenomenon so fundamental that it is observed across fruit flies, rodents, and humans. Read More

There is no long-term benefit to surgically placing tympanostomy tubes in a young child’s ears to reduce the rate of recurrent ear infections during the ensuing two years compared with giving oral antibiotics to treat ear infections, a randomized trial led by UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and University of Pittsburgh pediatrician-scientists determined. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Joseph Dohar, MD—Co-Director of the Wound Healing Program at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, the Research Director of Children’s Aerodigestive Center, the Medical Director of its Voice, Resonance, and Swallowing Center, a Professor of Otolaryngology in the School of Medicine, a Professor of Communication Science and Disorders in the School of Health and Rehabilitation at the University of Pittsburgh, and a Staff Otolaryngologist at both UPMC Presbyterian Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC—is a co-author on the study. Read More

The McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine applauds its affiliated faculty members who were recently recognized by Pittsburgh Magazine as a Top Doctor.  Castle Connolly Top Doctors is a healthcare research company and the official source for Top Doctors for the past 25 years.  In 2021, 677 doctors in 63 specialties were honored. Read More

Paul Kirsch of Greentree is a retired U.S. Marine and Reservist, teacher and administrator in the Northgate and Keystone Oaks school districts, and a former Keystone Oaks School Board member. He had his first job in sixth grade and worked post-retirement until he was 80, teaching education classes at a local college. Now at age 87, Mr. Kirsch’s upbeat attitude and enthusiasm for life hasn’t waned. Read More

After 40 years of blindness, a 58-year-old man can once again see images and moving objects, thanks to an injection of light-sensitive proteins into his retina. Read More

Three current and one former McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty

members were named Fellows of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE).  IAMBE is made up of fellows who are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the profession of medical and biological engineering. Read More

For tens of millions of patients who battle chronic lung diseases, present-day care options are mostly limited to short-term drug and oxygen therapy. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member and Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU’s) Biomedical Engineering’s Interim Department Head and Professor Keith Cook, PhD, is working on innovative technologies to advance the long-term effectiveness and future use of artificial organs to address this worldwide issue. Read More

In recent decades, computer mice have become just as ubiquitous as computers. Now, thanks to Human Engineering Research Laboratories (HERL) and VA researchers, there’s even a prosthetic hook mouse for people with upper-limb amputations. Read More

The third Saturday in May marks National Armed Forces Day. Here are some In the News articles which detail the ways in which the research of McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members supports members of the military community: Read More

Elderly residents of long-term care facilities mount a detectable antibody response to COVID-19 vaccination, according to a recently conducted survey of UPMC Senior Community residents. Because it’s not yet known how long the antibodies persist, the authors’ urged continual monitoring for COVID-19 symptoms and cautioned that there’s still a need for controlled reopening of the facilities. Read More

Oncologists faced with treating older women with breast cancer often must decide if the treatment may be more detrimental than the cancer. A study published in JAMA Network Open by researchers at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine sheds new light on this choice and suggests the rate of cancer recurrence or survival may be no different in treated vs. untreated elderly patients diagnosed in the early stages of the cancer diagnosed most commonly in women.  McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Steffi Oesterreich, PhD, the Shear Family Foundation Chair in Breast Cancer Research Professor and Vice-Chair Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology, University of Pittsburgh; Co-Leader Cancer Biology Program, UPMC Hillman Cancer Center (UPMC HCC); and Co-Director Women’s Cancer Research Center, UPMC HCC and Magee Womens Research Institute, is a co-author on the study. Read More

The first large-scale, multi-hospital evaluation of an “all or none” federal policy intended to improve outcomes in sepsis patients finds that the guidelines are a wash—on average they neither helped nor hurt despite significant investments in their implementation, according to an analysis by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (UPMC) clinician-scientists of nearly a dozen hospitals in one academic health system. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Derek Angus, MD, MPH, Executive Vice President, and Chief Healthcare Innovation Officer, UPMC; Associate Vice Chancellor for Healthcare Innovation, University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences; Distinguished Professor and Mitchell P. Fink Endowed Chair, Department of Critical Care Medicine, University of Pittsburgh and UPMC; Senior editor, JAMA, is a co-author on the study. Read More