Pediatric laryngotracheal stenosis (LTS), a narrowing of the airway in children, is a complex medical condition. While it can be something a child is born with or caused by injury, the condition can result in a life-threatening emergency if untreated. Treatment, however, is challenging. Depending on the severity, doctors will use a combination of endoscopic techniques, surgical repair, tracheostomy, or deployment of stents to hold the airway open and enable breathing.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Youngjae Chun, PhD, associate professor of industrial engineering and bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, will receive second-year research funding as part of more than $735,000 from The Children’s Heart Foundation, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to funding congenital heart defect (CHD) research.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have combined synthetic biology with a machine-learning algorithm to create human liver organoids with blood- and bile-handling systems. When implanted into mice with failing livers, the lab-grown replacement livers extended life.
At the University of Pittsburgh, the Center for Military Medicine Research (CMMR) recognizes the urgency for innovating to meet the demands of an increasingly complex security environment. Researchers have focused current and future efforts in the areas of trauma, emergency, and critical care. In doing so, the multi-disciplinary and multi-organizational-led team aims to significantly enhance the trauma care of the warfighter with direct relevance to civilian trauma care while also spurring the economic growth in the Pittsburgh region.
The FlowTriever percutaneous mechanical thrombectomy system (Inari Medical) is safe and provides immediate benefits to patients with acute pulmonary embolism (PE), interim results of the real-world FLASH registry suggest. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Catalin Toma, MD, Director of Interventional Cardiology for the Heart and Vascular Institute, Director of the Interventional Fellowship at UPMC, and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, presented study results during TCT Connect 2020.
A neural interface — or brain-computer interface — is a device that uses electrical stimulation to induce changes in brain activity. Among other applications, its positive effects are being leveraged to rehabilitate neurological conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease.
Coronary artery disease – a leading cause of death in the US – narrows or blocks arteries that carry a vital supply of blood, oxygen, and nutrients to the heart. A stent can be inserted to widen the artery, but these devices must be closely monitored to ensure that they do not re-narrow, a common complication called restenosis.
Diabetic patients monitor their blood glucose throughout the day, watching for peaks and valleys. Just taking a sample once during a visit to the doctor’s office would not give a clear picture of whether the patient’s diabetes is under control. The same is true of glaucoma patients, whose intraocular pressure (IOP), or pressure within the eye, is too high.
University of Pittsburgh’s Human Engineering Research Laboratories (HERL) recently announced its latest patent to help improve mobility for people who use prosthetics.
Polymer particles of any architecture, e.g. combs, stars, rings, have been produced for years thanks to the groundbreaking ATRP method discovered by Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, PhD, the J.C. Warner Professor of Natural Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University and affiliated faculty member of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Now scientists show how to carry out such reactions even more easily – in the presence of oxygen, in homelike conditions.
After a baby is born, doctors sometimes examine the placenta—the organ that links the mother to the baby—for features that indicate health risks in any future pregnancies. Unfortunately, this is a time-consuming process that must be performed by a specialist, so most placentas go unexamined after the birth. A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)—including McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Philip Leduc, PhD, William J. Brown Professor of Mechanical Engineering with appointments in Biological Sciences, Computational Biology, and Biomedical Engineering at CMU—report the development of a machine learning approach to examine placenta slides in The American Journal of Pathology, published by Elsevier, so more women can be informed of their health risks.
Patients who suffer from thrombosis, pulmonary embolism or stroke are usually put on drugs that help their blood flow more smoothly through their body. Occupying a large section of the drug market, anticoagulants, or “blood thinners” as they are popularly known, can keep blood clots from forming or getting bigger, and can therefore help with recovery from heart defects or prevent further complications.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member John Pacella, MD, Associate Professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and an Interventional Cardiologist within the UPMC Heart and Vascular Institute, is partnering with Microvascular Therapeutics (MVT), a biotechnology company based in Tucson, Arizona, and a leader in microbubble technology. MVT recently was awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a part of the National Institutes of Health.
The U.S. Department of Transportation recently announced $4.925 million in grants to fund four new Tier 1 University Transportation Centers (UTCs) to advance research and education programs that address critical transportation challenges facing our nation. The University of Pittsburgh was named one of the recipients of $1 million for its project entitled “Implications of Accessible Automated Vehicles and Mobility Services for People with Disabilities.”
The path to impact for basic life science research can be long and filled with big gaps: in time and in resources.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine Yu-li Wang, PhD, and his team are researching cell migration while using the technologies developed for potential applications in artificial organs and other devices. The team has been awarded a five-year research grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), one of the National Institutes of Health, to support this work.
The team led by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) has created a new technology that enhances scientists’ ability to communicate with neural cells using light. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Tzahi Cohen-Karni, PhD, CMU’s associate professor of biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering, led a team that synthesized three-dimensional fuzzy graphene on a nanowire template to create a superior material for photothermally stimulating cells. NW-templated three-dimensional (3D) fuzzy graphene (NT-3DFG) enables remote optical stimulation without the need for genetic modification and uses orders of magnitude less energy than available materials, preventing cellular stress. This work was presented in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences.
The Center for Disease Control estimates that roughly 40,000 infants are born with congenital heart defects (CHDs) each year. Among that population, 25 percent are critical cases that require cardiac surgery. The waitlist for a heart transplant continues to grow; yet, the only FDA-approved life-saving device for CHD has shortcomings and is based on technology from the 1970s.
Acute kidney injury is common in hospitalized patients, particularly those in intensive care units and older adults, and refers to a sudden episode of kidney failure or damage that happens within a few hours or days. It causes a build-up of waste products in the blood that can affect other organs, including the brain, heart, and lungs.
A respiratory dialysis system that was developed at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine Medical Devices Lab has been used to treat 16 COVID-19 patients, in conjunction with non-invasive or mechanical ventilation. The core technology developed at the Medical Devices Lab, was licensed to the spinout ALung Technologies, and ALung has designed and produced a clinically viable device, which is called the Hemolung® Respiratory Assist System (RAS).
In Pennsylvania and other U.S. states, one of the keys to safely reopening society amid the COVID-19 pandemic is providing sufficient testing so that new cases of the disease do not overwhelm the public healthcare system. University of Pittsburgh professors—led by McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Wei Gao, PhD—are reimagining testing using a device that nearly every American owns — a smartphone.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine are developing a new, low-cost ventilator they say will address the ventilator shortage, both now and in the future, that has been made evident by the COVID-19 pandemic. The team includes McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Keith Cook, PhD, a CMU professor of biomedical engineering. Dr. Cook, of CMU’s Biomedical Engineering Department, has expertise in advanced respiratory support, including the design and development of artificial lungs, liquid ventilation hardware and techniques, and animal models of lung disease.
A multidisciplinary team of researchers and clinicians, including McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member Peter Rubin, MD, FACS, 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, is working on a low-cost negative pressure hood that can be used to protect medical staff during intubations and other situations where aerosol spray is likely from infected patients. Moreover, it can also help prevent spread in environments without a negative pressure room, such as the Emergency Department of a hospital. This apparatus is different and far advanced compared with static protection boxes which are only passive shields. What makes this new hood most remarkable is its active airflow and HEPA filtering.
A device designed at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine could help improve outcomes as a treatment for COVID-19 when used in conjunction with non-invasive or mechanical ventilation, and it recently received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Health records from a New York study showed that close to 90 percent of patients who were placed on mechanical ventilation did not survive. Some intensive care units are now considering mechanical ventilation as a last resort because of the complications and side effects associated with the process, and researchers believe this device could help.
Under the direction of McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member William Federspiel, PhD, the William Kepler Whiteford Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh, the Institute’s Medical Devices Laboratory is developing clinically significant devices for the treatment of pulmonary and other cardiovascular ailments by utilizing the engineering principles of fluid flow and mass transfer.
Approximately one in every 125 babies in the U.S. is born with a congenital heart defect (CHD), making it the country’s most common birth defect. Heart valves developed for adults have been used on infants to treat CHDs, but the large devices sometimes require open heart surgery, presenting a severe risk to infants and young children. Additionally, infants and children grow quickly, but the artificial valve does not, resulting in repeated surgeries that increase risks.
A multi-institution research team led by the University of Pittsburgh secured a $22 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a device combining artificial intelligence, bioelectronics and regenerative medicine to regrow muscle tissue, especially after combat injuries.
Neural stimulation is a pioneering technology that can be used to recover function and improve the quality of life for individuals who suffer from brain injury or disease. It serves an integral role in modern neuroscience research and human neuroprosthetics, including advancements in prosthetic limbs and brain-computer interfaces. A challenge that remains with this technology is achieving long-term and precise stimulation of a specific group of neurons.
Abbott Laboratories, the Abbott Park, Illinois-based health care giant, has won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a less invasive surgical procedure that allows surgeons to implant the company’s heart pump without a patient undergoing open heart surgery.
Renerva, a medical startup that is developing an injectable gel to speed the healing of damaged nerves and creating an off-the-shelf nerve-graft product that may spare patients life-long disability, has joined Cornell University’s McGovern Center life sciences business incubator.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, PhD, is the Co-Founder and CSO of BioHybrid Solutions, LLC (BHS), a Pittsburgh-based protein engineering company, which recently received a contract worth up to $30 million from the United States Department of Defense to develop a next-generation prophylactic medical countermeasure. The project was sponsored by the U.S. Government through the Medical CBRN Defense Consortium (MCDC). Dr. Matyjaszewski is the J.C. Warner Professor of Natural Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University.
Garrett Coyan, MD, sees many patients each week, from children to the elderly, to check on their replacement heart valves.
The brain is a complex organ full of neurons that work together to help us move, feel, think, and more. A multidisciplinary group from the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is working to expand the amount of information researchers can receive from a neural interface device and received two grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for their collaborative effort.
Magnesium and magnesium alloys have the potential to become a revolutionary material for a variety of industries because of their lightweight structure and ability to quickly biodegrade in water or inside the human body. Researchers, however, are still struggling to process this very reactive metal to eliminate defects that accelerate corrosion.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Richard Debski, PhD, professor of bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh and the co-director of the Orthopedic Robotics Laboratory, is a member of a team of researchers on a project which received $400K from the NIH to design and test a miniature, implantable, and battery-free sensor to monitor spinal fusion progress after surgery.
The recent Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper article by Jill Daly highlights the significant challenges infants and children face if they require a heart transplant.
Renerva, LLC, a medical device company developing innovative technologies for peripheral nerve repair, announced recently that it has received two additional grants totaling $500,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), rapidly accelerating development of their medical device products.
While 3D printing soft materials, such as silicone or proteins, offers many advantages, it also introduces many new and complicated variables to consider when creating a new part, per Vanesa Listek for 3D Print in her report featuring the work of McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Newell Washburn, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering and chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The existing soft materials that can be 3D printed commercially are somewhat limited since they don’t have all the properties that researchers need to fully advance their developments and they end up working within the constraints of the current technology.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Keith Cook, PhD, a professor of biomedical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), is working to give new hope to patients with chronic lung disease.
The Disabled Veterans National Foundation (DVNF), a nonprofit veterans service organization that provides critically needed support to disabled and at-risk veterans who leave the military wounded—physically or psychologically—after defending our safety and our freedom, presented a grant of $50,000 to the Human Engineering Research Laboratories (HERL).
