The Cellular Approaches to Tissue Engineering and Regeneration (CATER) program is pleased to congratulate one of our trainees, Ms. Kien Tran, on receiving an F31 grant award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study, “Development of Novel Testicular Tissue Organ Culture Systems to Induce in vitro Spermatogenesis.” Ms. Tran is a 4th year PhD candidate in the Molecular Genetics and Developmental Biology Program. She is currently working with Dr. Kyle Orwig at the Magee-Womens Research Institute. The scope of her research focuses on developing next-generation tissue-base and cell-based technologies to restore fertility in male patients, specifically in childhood cancer survivors. To achieve this goal, her current studies focus on understanding developmental biology of germ cells across different species, from rodents to non-human primates to humans. Her work will contribute to development of new therapeutic methods for infertile male patients to conceive biological children.
This F31 Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award Fellowship is funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institutes of Health and Human Development. The program supports pre-doctoral students whose projects are focused on enhancing the general population’s understanding of normal and abnormal human development, including fertility, childhood development through adolescence, pregnancy, childbirth, etc. A goal for the funded training is to unveil each individual trainee’s potential to develop into a productive and independent research scientist.
