"Our regenerative medicine approach for healing damaged tissues and organs might not have moved forward without this new grant concept," Lagasse noted. "This funding supports assessment and rapid translation from the bench to the bedside of nontraditional treatments."

Banerjee will investigate the process through which embryonic stem cells become mature, organ-specific cells and how scientists can control that development. Using a bottom-up approach, Banerjee will cultivate stem cells into pancreatic cells, noting molecular-level information that could be integrated into dictating cell development, such as the influence of environmental factors and gene and protein networks.

"I want to take a completely different approach to addressing the complex process of cell development, which will potentially advance our understanding of regenerative medicine and stem cell bioengineering as a whole," Banerjee said.

Two Pitt researchers have received NIH Director's awards in the past. In 2007, Eva Szigethy, of the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC and an assistant professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Pitt, received a New Innovators grant to use inflammatory bowel disease as a model for investigating the interactions between the brain, gut, and immune system in determining how adolescents cope with chronic illness.

The following year, Barry London, a Pitt professor of medicine, was presented with a Pioneer Award to develop new techniques to image electrical activity of the heart and identify those at risk of sudden cardiac death.

Source: University of Pittsburgh