On June 15th, 2018, the UF Center for Regenerative Medicine hosted its inaugural summit to bring together researchers and faculty from across UF and beyond!
This meeting will facilitate faculty awareness of many areas of wide and diverse range of exploration on our campus pertinent to Regenerative Medicine. We hope to catalyze many conversations that will develop a multidisciplinary and multispecialty perspective for the Center for Regenerative Medicine. The express goal is to integrate our many strengths to develop a leading role for the University of Florida in Regenerative Medicine, advancing new science, technology, and ultimately clinical therapies to address a wide range of unmet medical needs.
– Keith March
Naohiro Terada, M.D., Ph.D. is a Professor and Director of Experimental Pathology Division in the Department of Pathology, University of Florida College of Medicine. He serves as the Director for University of Florida Center for Cellular Reprogramming. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are expected not only as a future source for cell-based transplantation therapies but also as a unique research tool for disease pathobiology studies. In collaboration with numerous clinical investigators, we have established iPSCs from patients with various monogenic and polygenic disorders. These iPSCs are currently used for disease mechanism studies, GWAS-based genotype-phenotype research, and discovery for novel therapeutic interventions.
Jon Dobson, Ph.D., focuses his research on biomedical applications of magnetic micro- and nanoparticles. His group has developed novel technologies for 1) magnetic targeting and remote activation of cell signaling pathways for cell engineering and stem cell therapy; 2) magnetic nanoparticle-based gene transfection delivery; and 3) magnetic targeting of modified cell carriers for cancer therapy and regenerative medicine. In addition, he has also led a multi-national research program developing novel imaging and characterization techniques to quantify, characterize and map iron compounds related to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Barry J. Byrne, M.D., Ph.D., is the Associate Chair of Pediatrics and Director of the Powell Gene Therapy Center at the University of Florida. Dr. Byrne is a clinician scientist interested in a variety of rare diseases, with specific attention to developing therapies for inherited muscle disease. As a pediatric cardiologist, his focus is on conditions that lead to skeletal muscle weakness, cardiac dysfunction and respiratory dysfunction. His research team has made significant contributions to the understanding and treatment of Pompe disease, a type of muscular dystrophy resulting from abnormal glycogen accumulation in the muscle. His current research has focused on developing new therapies using the missing cellular protein or the corrective gene to restore muscle function in Pompe and other inherited myopathies.
Daohong Zhou, M.D., is a Professor of Pharmacodynamics and Radiation Oncology at the University of Florida. He serves as the Associate Director for Translation and Drug Development and the Harry E. Innes Endowed Professor of Cancer Research at the UF Health Cancer Center. Dr. Zhou’s research has been focused on developing new therapeutics that can selectively kill senescent cells to rejuvenate tissue stem cells to promote tissue regeneration and repair and to treat age-related diseases and cancer cytotoxic therapy-induced side effects.
Chris Batich, Ph.D., has conducted research for applications of materials to biomedical devices in numerous collaborative projects with the UF Health Center. From 1997-2002 he was the founding director of the graduate Biomedical Engineering Program, and was the PI of the Whitaker Foundation Grant dedicated to that activity. From 2008-2010 he was founding associate director and chief operating officer of the new Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at UF and participated in writing the $25 million dollar grant from NIH that began that institute. He then became the director of the Pilot Project Program in the CTSI. Batich is a joint member of the UF BME Department as well as a professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department. While at DuPont and UF, Batich has worked with surface modification and analysis of polymeric materials as well as preventing neurodegeneration. He currently has active projects in drug delivery and medical devices.
Karyn Esser, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Physiology and Functional Genomics and also Associate Director within the Institute of Myology at UF. Her lab has pioneered research on the role of circadian rhythms in skeletal muscle health. Over the last 15+ years, her lab used genetic models of circadian disruption (Bmal1 KO/Clock mutant mice) to show that skeletal muscle exhibits profound weakness, altered fiber type, increased fibrosis and disrupted mitochondria similar to what is shown in aging skeletal muscle. We recently found that targeted disruption of the molecular clock only in adult skeletal muscle is sufficient to induce muscle weakness, insulin resistance with development of cardiac hypertrophy. Our current projects range from very basic science studies to define mechanisms through which the molecular clock regulates muscle homeostasis to defining the function of exercise as a modulator of the muscle clocks to collaborations with colleagues to apply circadian concepts to studies of human health and disease.
Thomas E. Angelini, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. His background includes study of protein, lipid, DNA and virus self-assembly; collective cell migration and force transmission in cell monolayers; bacterial biofilm growth and spreading associated with biosurfactants and extracellular polysaccharide. Currently, his work focuses on cell-assembly and collective motion in 2D and 3D cell populations, 3D printing of soft matter, and lubrication of soft interfaces. In 2014, he received the NSF CAREER award to study stability and dynamics of tissue cell assemblies in yield stress materials. In 2018, he and his collaborators won the first Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI) research grant at UF, with Angelini as the PI of a team of 8 UF professors and numerous researchers in the pharmaceutical industry.
Adam Katz, M.D., is a Professor of surgery in the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. His clinical interests include breast and body contouring, general reconstructive surgery for trauma, cancer or other causes, facial trauma, and aesthetic surgery. His research focuses on adipose-derived cells and matrix components, and their therapeutic application and translation within the broader context of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. At the UF College of Medicine, Dr. Katz and his team are working in the lab to explore whether they can prompt the body to heal wounds faster and with less scarring. Their starting point is the patient’s own fat. The researchers extract a particular cell fraction from a patient’s fat and then combine it with other biological components to create a novel wound healing therapy that essentially ‘recycles’ a patient’s own excess fat tissue into a sophisticated but personalized bioactive adhesive bandage.