McGowan Institute?
January 2003 | VOL. 1 | www.McGowan.pitt.edu
Happy New Year! As we begin the New Year, our thanks and congratulations to all who have contributed to the growth and successes of 2002. The following highlights some of the recent notable events and recognitions of the faculty and students of the McGowan Institute.
Nearly 300 patients who have had heart, lung or heart/lung transplants at UPMC returned to Pittsburgh on November 16th– some for the first time – along with family members and friends for reunion organized by UPMC and the McGowan Institute.
The first-ever “Patient Day” was intended as a celebration not only of life, but also of the hope that new technologies represent for patients awaiting transplant. For many patients, this reunion was the first opportunity they have had in a number of years to talk to the surgeons, physicians, nurses and other transplant support personnel who cared for them.
Patient Day activities included luncheons at three Family House locations and the McGowan Institute building, and culminated with a gala celebration at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center.
Comments by Robert Kormos, Institute Medical Director and Director of UPMC’s Artificial Heart Program and Thoracic Transplantation, Alan J. Russell, Institute Director and Kenneth R. McCurry, Assistant Professor of Surgery and Director of Lung and Heart/Lung Transplantation at UPMC acknowledged the significant contributions of the patients to the advancement of the state-of-the-art in transplantation science.
More than 1,600 transplants of thoracic (chest) organs have been performed at the University of Pittsburgh since 1980. Its lung transplant program is one of the most active in the United States and the heart transplant and artificial heart programs are among the most experienced.
Last year, UPMC transplant surgeons performed 41 heart, two heart/lung and 58 lung transplants, including one involving a living donor. In addition, there were 21 implants of heart assist devices.
Other McGowan Institute News
The Second Annual McGowan Institute Scientific Retreat is taking shape. The Retreat Committee, under the leadership of Michael Chancellor is finalizing the program. Program information and registration is available on-line at www.mirm.pitt.edu/events/events.htm All Faculty members are encouraged to invite one graduate student or post doc. Posters are requested from the faculty and/or the trainee. All Faculty should save the date, register on-line and submit your abstract for the poster session. The deadline for registration is January 25th!
The Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative is organizing the 2003 Engineering Tissue Growth Conference, to be held in Pittsburgh, March 17-20, 2003.
Undergraduate students can attend the Engineering Tissue Growth Conference for free on Tuesday, March 18, 2003: the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative is sponsoring a student component to the national Engineering Tissue Growth Conference. The program is designed to provide undergraduate students with practical experiences to strengthen their knowledge and skills and deepen their interest in pursuing careers in the field of regenerative medicine. If you know of an undergraduate student who would have an interest in attending the ETG Conference, please have the student contact Patrick Cantini, Professional Development Activities, PTEI for details on the application process (pcantini@ptei.org or 412-235-5128). Student applicants also have the opportunity to present a poster on their research work, visible to an international audience of scientists and executives. Deadline for application review is January 10, 2003.
The Institute is pleased to welcome the following new faculty members:
Stephen
Badylak, D.V.M., Ph.D., M.D., recognized for his work on tissue
engineering and the development bioscaffolds. Steve previously served
as a Research Professor at Purdue University. He has been appointed
as a Research Professor effective January 1, 2003 and will serve as
the Director of a new Center for Pre-Clinical Tissue Engineering within
the McGowan Institute.
Steve’s research has addressed the use of small intestinal submucosa as a smart tissue biomaterial conducive to remodeling, the ECM as a bioscaffold for orthopaedic tissue reconstruction and the immune response to xenogeneic ECM scaffolds in mammals. He has been awarded 40 patents for his innovative and pioneering research.
Email: badylaks@msx.upmc.edu
Jörg
Gerlach, M.D., Ph.D., recognized for his work on biohybrid
liver design joined the Institute in November. He has been appointed
as a professor in the Department of Surgery. Prior to coming to Pittsburgh,
Jörg conducted his innovative research program at Humboldt University
in Berlin. He also was director of research for experimental surgery
in the Surgical Clinic Charité in Berlin and was a founder of
the Charité Institute for Transplantation and Organ Regeneration.
His research focus is on building bioreactor systems that combine synthetic components with human cells to create support therapies that can help to boost the patient’s own healing process by allowing the affected organ to rest and recuperate. The underlying premise is that an organ system can be functionally relieved or “unloaded” to facilitate this natural healing.
Email: joerg.gerlach@hybrid-organ.com
Kacey
Marra, Ph.D., recognized for her research interdisciplinary
research in the design, synthesis, characterization and assessment of
polymer/ceramic scaffolds. Kacey joined the Department of Surgery as
an Assistant Professor in December 2002. Prior to that appointment she
was with the Carnegie Mellon University as a member of the Department
of Biomedical and Health Engineering (1997-2002). At Carnegie Mellon,
she served as a Research Scientist at the Institute for Complex Engineered
Systems (ICES).
Currently, Kacey is actively involved in research efforts investigating polymer and ceramic biomaterials for tissue engineering applications, such as bone and blood vessels. As a member of the Bone Tissue Engineering Initiative at Carnegie Mellon, she conduced studies related to polymer and ceramic scaffolds. Immediate applications of new polymer/ceramic biomaterials include spinal fusion and cranio-facial abnormalities.
Email: marrak@msx.upmc.edu
Bruno
Péault, Ph.D., recognized for his research on the identification,
characterization and purification of several categories of human stem
cells: hematopoietic stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells, endothelial
stem cells, pancreas and respiratory epithelium stem cells. He has been
appointed as Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Cell Biology.
Served as the Research Director, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and department head at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) prior to joining the Institute on January 1, 2003.
Research has been focused on the characterization of human hematopoietic stem cells, a novel marker was identified, and the development of new assays for human stem cells in immunodeficient mice. Besides normal, malignant and transgenic hematopoiesis, a novel xenochimeric system was developed that faithfully models the differentiation of human respiratory tissues in SCID mice. Most recently this assay system has been used to identify the first population of stem cells in the human respiratory epithelium. Thus model has also been modified to offer the first system in which human secondary lymphoid tissues (lymph nodes) can be maintained intact and functional for extended periods of time, thus offering the first ex vivo model of human immunity.
Email: Bruno.Peault@chp.edu or peault@vjf.inserm.fr
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Chemical and Engineering News in a feature article entitled PITTSBURGH RISING addressed that chemical and medical technologies have taken root where steel mills once belched smoke. The article featured Bill Federspiel, one of the co-founders of ALung that is commercializing an intravenous membrane oxygenator developed at the Institute. The artificial lung is intended to free emphysema patients from uncomfortable mechanical ventilators when they need assistance in breathing.
- Similar coverage of the artificial lung program as related to bioterrorism
threats is addressed in the January 8th issue of the Pittsburgh
Business Times.
- Marina Kameneva presented the plenary lecture on "Hemorheological
Aspects of Flow Induced Blood Trauma in Artificial Organs" during
a joint meeting of the 11th International Congress of Biorheology
and the 4th International Conference on Clinical Hemorheology in Antalya,
Turkey. Details are available at: http://www.biocompare.com/news/newsstory.asp?id=6544
- Congratulations to Jim Antaki, Associate Professor in Bioengineering,
who received the Provost's Innovation in Education Award for his senior
year course in Integrated Bioengineering Design. Also, in March of
this year, Antaki was inducted as a fellow of the American Institute
for Medical and Biological Engineering for his "outstanding contributions
to the field of medical and biological engineering." He has been
a past recipient of the Institute of Electrical Electronics Engineers'
(IEEE) Control System Technology Award (with a colleague from the
University of California a Barbara) for development of the "Streamliner"
heart-assist pump.
Graduate
Student John Stankus Receives PA Space Grant: Please join in congratulating
Mr. John Stankus, Graduate Student of Dr. Wagner who was awarded a
Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium Fellowship in recognition of his
outstanding academic record and research in an area related to the
NASA space program. The award is a supplemental fellowship of $2,000.
John was one of six students in Arts and Sciences, Engineering, and
Information Sciences who received this award.
- As reported by Chemical
and Engineering News, the Chemical Engineering Department has
been recognized for being in the top 25 for federal funding of ChE
Departments. Congratulations to the Department!
- The longstanding achievements of the transplantation and artificial heart programs were highlighted in the UPMC press release. See: “50 Years and Counting, UPMC Artificial Heart Patients Reach Half-Century Milestone That They have Been on Assist Devices”
- Brack Hattler is PI on a DOD $2 million grant to evaluate the merits
of the experimental Hattler Respiratory Catheter for use in battlefield
medicine – particularly as a possible treatment for lung injuries
sustained in biochemical attacks. The Hattler Catheter, made up in
part of a tightly bound fabric of microporous polypropylene hollow-fiber
membranes, is inserted temporarily through a vein into the leg or
neck and threaded into a major vein near the heart called the vena
cava. Early tests show that it can substitute 40 percent to 60 percent
of a patient’s compromised lung function.
The two-year project includes close collaboration with U.S. Army scientists affiliated with the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, a major training center for combat physicians. The project is being funded by a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense that is being shared by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.
Grants and appropriations from the U.S. Department of Defense to fund research toward the development of the Hattler Respiratory Catheter have totaled more than $7 million since 1994. Also known as the Intravenous Membrane Oxygenator (IMO), the experimental device was developed and patented by Dr. Hattler.
The Hattler Respiratory Catheter is designed to support lung function for seven to 10 days during healing. The device will be manufactured and distributed by ALung Technologies Inc. of Pittsburgh.
- James H-C. Wang, Assistant Professor in the Departments of Orthopaedics,
Bioengineering, and Mechanical Engineering, was recently awarded a
$1.0 million dollar grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
entitled “A Multidisciplinary Study of Mechanisms for Tendinitis”.
With this grant, total grant funding received from the NIH by the
MSRC exceeds $11 million. The co-investigators are Dr. David Stone,
an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and
Team Physician for the University of Pittsburgh Athletic Department,
and Dr. Savio L-Y. Woo, the A.B. Ferguson Professor and Vice Chairman
for Research of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. Consultants
include Dr. Sudha Agarwal, Dr. Christopher Niyibizi, Dr. Mohamed Virji,
and Dr. Tong Wu, all faculty members of the University of Pittsburgh
and UPMC.
Repetitive motion disorders affect millions of people in workplaces in the United States. Despite the increasing prevalence of the repetitive motion disorders such as tendinitis, and the fact that they have become an extremely costly public health problem, there are important gaps in our knowledge about pathophysiological mechanisms for these repetitive motion disorders.
The objective of this project is to elucidate the pathophysiological mechanisms for tendinitis using a novel in vitro model and an animal model. The central working hypothesis in this project is that tendon fibroblasts are responsible for the development of tendinitis by producing PGE2, which is upregulated by increased expression levels of PLA2, COX-1 and COX-2, and that high levels of PGE2 cause dysfunction of the tendon fibroblasts, thus resulting in pathophysiological changes in tendons. A multidisciplinary approach based on mechano-biology, molecular biology and biomechanics will be used.
When completed, this project will provide insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms for tendinitis at the cellular and molecular levels. It will also provide clinically valuable data about the effect of repetitive inflammation due to PGE2 on the tendon structure and function, which will help develop strategies to prevent and treat tendinitis effectively. The findings from this study will also be useful in helping design experiments to study other repetitive motion disorders (e.g., carpal tunnel syndrome).
- Marina Kameneva received an award from the American Diabetes Association
for the study of “Application of Blood Soluble Drag-Reducing
Polymers for Treatment of Impaired Microcirculation in Diabetes”.
The research involves a series of studies in the STZ model of Type
I Diabetes to assess the effectiveness of her novel drag-reducing
polymers to produce significant effects on microvascular profusion
under circumstances of tissue hypoperfusion.
- Anna C. Balazs, the RobertVon der Luft Professor of Chemical and
Petroleum Engineering, has recently received a three-year $801,000
grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study the "Creation
of Hierarchically Ordered Nanocomposites Through Self-Assembly”.
She and her colleagues from the University of California at Santa
Barbara, the University of Delaware and fellow Pitt Professor David
Jasnow will work to create novel nanostructured materials that can
be used in applications such as photovoltaic cells, catalysis, selective
separations, miniaturized electronic and magnetic devices, and photonic
crystals with tunable band gaps.
The NIBIB has issued several new research solicitations in areas concerning small animal imaging, cellular- and molecular-level imaging, telehealth, imaging technology research, image-guided interventions, and advanced biomaterials. These solicitations include Requests for Applications (RFAs) and Program Announcements (PAs) and use the NIH R01 (basic NIH research grants), R21 (novel or exploratory research), and/or SBIR/STTR mechanisms.
- Systems and Methods for Small Animal Imaging
- Systems and Methods for Small Animal Imaging
- Research and Development of Systems and Methods for Cellular and Molecular Imaging
- Telehealth Technologies Development
- Low-Cost Medical Imaging Devices
- Telehealth Technologies Development
- Image-Guided Interventions
- Development of Advanced Biomaterials
- Research Opportunities in Tissue Engineering
- Development of Novel Drug and Gene Delivery Systems and Devices
Summaries are available at http://www.mirm.pitt.edu/events/nibib.asp