Unrepaired traumatic cartilage injuries in synovial joint cartilage can lead to post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA), a painful and debilitating condition affecting millions around the world, contributing >$100B/year in healthcare costs in the US alone. Stem cell therapies have the potential to treat a wide variety of injuries throughout the body, including cartilage regeneration to delay PTOA. However, there are gaps in our understanding of the processes that regulate stem cell function that prevent their wide-spread clinical application. Techniques to genetically reprogram stem cells to obtain desired functional outcomes over the long-term would have enormous implications in healthcare and can have a paradigm shifting impact in medicine.
People
Rhima
Coleman
BME, ME
Engineering
Cheri
Deng
BME
Engineering
Xudong
Fan
BME
Engineering
Funding
Funding: $45K (2022)
Goal: Characterize stem cell differentiation during cartilage formation to identify the cellular processes that regulate cell function in simulated tissue repair environments and use that data to engineer gene circuits that regulate specific stem cell functions.
Token Investors: Rhima Coleman, Cheri Deng, Xudong Fan
Project ID: 1046