Assistant Professor Ray Page, from Biomedical Engineering has been awarded two grants from Datar Genetics.
The first is a $1.5M grant for his project titled “Towards development of a complete function in vitro model of human skeletal muscle tissue.” The focus of this research addresses the need for models of human skeletal muscle function that enables the discovery, development, and testing of therapeutic products to treat skeletal muscle disease. The approach involves a novel combination of various cell types derived from adult human tissue and a unique tissue engineering approach that permits the formation of functional tissue that can be used to model human skeletal muscle function in vitro. Successful execution of this research will enable more efficacious development drug and therapeutic strategies for human musculoskeletal disorders and tissue replacement therapies than is currently possible using animal models and traditional cell culture systems.
The second is a $500K grant, also from Datar Genetics, for his project titled “Development of methods to recover DNA from compromised tissue for somatic cell nuclear transfer.” The list of endangered species world-wide is growing at a remarkable rate. While there are many genetic material and cell cryobanks established to preserve germplasm and viable cells to be used to preserve viable animals for future repopulation, some genetically valuable or diverse samples can be lost due to failure to cryopreserve cells in the viable state. This project aims to employ novel micro dissection and cellular reconstitution procedures to produce viable cells from tissue that is deemed non-viable according to the current state of the art. Success in this project will provide a means to restore the diversity of species in the event of catastrophic loss due to irrecoverable viable tissue.