McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member J. 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, was recently interviewed by Olga Villaverde, the host of Dr. Q&A of AllHealthTV.com. Dr. Rubin answered many medical questions from Ms. Villaverde and viewers.
It was a nagging mystery: A rare-disease expert at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh had found a successful treatment for two of the deadliest symptoms of one of the more common classes of rare diseases diagnosed by newborn screenings, but one symptom—painful episodes of muscle breakdown that land victims in intensive care—persisted.
A nanoparticle technology created at Duquesne University for oxygen delivery could enable the preservation of organs prior to transplantations, according to a new study from McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members located at Duquesne and the Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, universities worldwide have been forced to reduce in-person interactions, altering how we connect and work with one another. The transition to a “virtual world” has been eye-opening, proving to many that research and innovation can continue, even in a remote setting.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
