The McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine held its 2014 Scientific Retreat March 9-11, 2014. The focus was on peer-to-peer networking, and the retreat provided many opportunities to explore collaborative endeavors with other researchers, participating guests, and external partners who are working to bring regenerative medicine technologies to clinical use.
The participation and contributions of the guests and external collaborators – along with McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty and trainees – provided for insightful discussions and identification of opportunities for partnership. This year’s program was chaired by Kacey Marra, PhD, Associate Professor in the Departments of Plastic Surgery (primary) and Bioengineering (secondary), as well as Co-Director of the Adipose Stem Cell Center at the University of Pittsburgh.
Program Highlights:
The retreat program included special presentations by the following guests:
- Arthur S. Levine, MD, Senior Vice Chancellor and Dean-School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh: “Welcome to the MIRM Annual Retreat and to the University of Pittsburgh”
- McGowan Institute Distinguished Lecture “The Critical Role of Extracellular Matrix and Microenvironment in Metastasis and Dormancy” by Mina Bissell, PhD, Distinguished Scientist, Life Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Highlights of emerging clinical therapies introduced by J. Peter Rubin, MD and Peter Wearden, MD, PhD.
The Retreat program also included a great cross-section of scientific presentations given by invited researchers from other departments, institutions and agencies who are not formally affiliated with the Institute.
A special session addressing career tracks as shared by recent graduates included presentations by:
- Priya Baraniak, PhD, Director of Business Development, RoosterBio: ”From Graduate Training to Postdoc in Academia and Then Industry”
- Matthew Fisher, PhD, Assistant Professor-Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill: “Staying in Academia”
- Zahida Khan, MD, PhD, Pediatric Gastroenterology Fellow, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh: “MD/PhD Track”
- Tim Maul, PhD, ECMO Coordinator, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, and Research Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh: “Staying in Academia”
The Retreat saw increased participation by representatives from industry; industry representatives included:
ACell, Inc.- ALung Technologies, Inc.
- BioSphenix, Ltd
- Dow Corning Corp.
- Instron, Inc.
- MPI Research
- Omnyx, LLC
- RoosterBio
- Vertex, Inc.
Elevator Pitch Competition
Under the leadership of Paul J. Petrovich, CPA, the University of Pittsburgh, Office of Enterprise Development (OED), hosted the “Innovator Elevator Pitch Contest.” This event consisted of a series of scheduled brief presentations from on the value of their technology to an audience which included industry participants, faculty and trainees.
This year, there were two prizes-one winner was determined by the audience and one by the expert commentators/judges. The winners were:
By the judges:
Rapid Preservation Catheter for Transplant Organ Recovery
By Bryan Tillman, MD, PhD
By the audience:
CuroStem ™: Cellular Band age
By: Don Taylor, PhD and Austin Nuschke
The two winning “pitches” received guaranteed acceptance into the Innovation Institute’s Pitt Venture 1st Gear Enterprise Creation Team (EC Team) Development Program. This program provides a $6,000 award to establish and train EC Teams to “Articulate the Opportunity for the Technology.” The award will fund the student’s participation in 1st Gear and can also be used to further the technology development and commercial understanding, including travel to interview prospective customer segments.
Poster Session
The poster session, which had more entries than any other Retreat, was effective in introducing the focus of the Retreat and interests of the faculty and the guests. Andrew Duncan, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology, Division of Experimental Pathology, University of Pittsburgh, and his committee organized the session and judged the posters. The winners of the poster session were:
Category: Cellular Therapy
- First place: Aparna Rao
- Mentor: Eric Lagasse, PharmD, PhD
- Department Pathology; University of Pittsburgh
- “Engineering an ectopic thymus in the lymph node to induce central tolernce and long-term allograft acceptance”
- Runner-up: Mehwish Khaliq
- Mentor: Donghun Shin, PhD
- Department of Developmental Biology; University of Pittsburgh
- “Characterization and role of id2a in zebrafish liver development and regeneration”
Category: Medical Devices
- First place: Molly Blank
- Mentor: James Antaki, PhD
- Department of Biomedical Engineering; Carnegie Mellon University
- “Design and assessment of a breast palpation device alpha-prototype for the quantification of breast lesions”
- Runner-up: Salim Olia
- Mentor: Marina Kameneva, PhD
- Department of Bioengineering; University of Pittsburgh
- “A Novel Left Ventricle Inflow Cannula for the PediaFlow® Pediatric Ventricular Assist Device”
Category: Computation and Modeling
- First place: Callie Miller
- Mentor: Lance Davidson, PhD
- Department of Bioengineering; University of Pittsburgh
- “Mechanics of actomyosin linear morphologies”
- Runner-up: Thang Ho
- Mentor: Robert Parker, PhD
- Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering; University of Pittsburgh
- “An Algorithm for Patient-Specific Cancer Chemotherapy Scheduling”
Category: Tissue Engineering
- First place: Saik-Kia Goh
- Mentor: Ipsita Banerjee, PhD
- Department of Bioengineering; University of Pittsburgh
- “In-vivo Maturation of Endocrine Pancreas based on Perfusion-Decellularized Pancreatic Matrix and Human Embryonic Stem Cells”
- Runner-up: Rachelle Palchesko, PhD
- Mentor: Adam Feinberg, PhD
- Department of Biomedical Engineering; Carnegie Mellon University
- Department of Ophthalmology; University of Pittsburgh
- “Development of a Human Bioengineered Corneal Endothelium Towards Use in Endothelial Keratoplasty”
CATER Poster Session Winners:
- First place: Megan A. Jamiolkowski
- Mentor: William R. Wagner, PhD
- Department of Bioengineering; University of Pittsburgh
- “Real Time Visualization and Characterization of Platelet Deposition under Flow onto Clinically-Relevant Opaque Surfaces”
- Runner-up: Mehwish Khaliq
- Mentor: Donghun Shin, PhD
- Department of Developmental Biology; University of Pittsburgh
- “Characterization and role of id2a in zebrafish liver development and regeneration”
Recognition of Recent CATER Graduates:
Julie Cramer, PhD and Christopher Medberry, PhD
Door Prizes:
Winners of the door prizes were Xinzhu Gu, Alan Wells, PhD, and Brian Sicari, PhD. Prizes were courtesy of Nemacolin Woodlands.
A special thank you is extended to all who made this year’s Retreat a success!
See the full Retreat Program here.