Around the world, millions of people are living with the burden of chronic and inherited diseases. We’ve learned to manage symptoms with dialysis, insulin, and lifelong medications. At ISCRM, our goal is to go further – to improve patient wellbeing by addressing the root causes of conditions like heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes. To truly change medicine, we need a better way to study how diseases start, progress, and respond to treatment inside the human body. Across the institute, in more than 150 labs, world-class biologists, engineers, and clinicians are already building human disease models from stem cells. We can create nearly every cell type in the lab, reprogram patient-specific cells, and use gene editing to mimic diseases. Our work has led to regenerative heart tissue and helped enable FDA-approved gene therapies for muscular dystrophy. These are extraordinary milestones—but we’re not done yet.
In the stories below, you’ll read about just a few of the many discoveries and advances that have been aided by the kinds of modeling tools that are going to help us change medicine forever by allowing us to study human diseases in human cells with unprecedented speed and precision. As Director of this incredible institute, I am excited and honored to work with each one of you to carry this legacy forward.
Jennifer Davis, ISCRM Director
Breakthroughs and Discoveries
Landmark Grant for Diabetes Research
Today, 1.6 million adults and children living with type 1 diabetes rely on insulin for day-to-day survival. For years, researchers have experimented with more permanent fixes, including transplanting pancreatic islets, which contain insulin- and glucagon-producing cells, into patients. One factor impeding progress on new cell therapies is a shortage of biological material. There simply aren’t enough viable cells from organ donors to meet the demand. An ISCRM team hopes to change that.
In October, a multidisciplinary team of ISCRM researchers led by Dr. Vincenzo Cirulli, in collaboration with Dr. Hannele Ruohola-Baker, Dr. Laura Crisa, Dr. Shiri Levy, Dr. Julie Mathieu, and Dr. Karol Bomsztyk, received $8.6 million in funding from the NIH. The transformative award will support an ambitious effort to overcome one of the biggest challenges in stem cell–based therapies for diabetes: achieving the reliable and reproducible generation of fully functional pancreatic islets from multiple stem cell lines. The project will use AI-designed mini-proteins, known as EpiBinders, developed through a collaboration between the Ruohola-Baker and Baker labs.
Using Stem Cells to Study Alzheimer’s Disease
This fall, Dr. Jessica Young received a second year of investment from the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund to continue a project aimed at identifying new therapeutic targets for Alzheimer’s disease. For years, the Young Lab has been a world leader in the use of induced pluripotent stem cells to study how protein traffic jams in the brain can lead to the devastating disorder – and to identify potential therapies to help patients before the symptoms become irreversible.
At the same time, the Young Lab is collaborating with Dr. Ying Zheng to understand how inflammation in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients contributes to a breakdown of the neurovascular unit, a system of microvessels that protects and nourishes the brain. Together, the two labs are using 3D bioengineering techniques and stem cells to model the neurovascular unit, and have already observed that adding microglia (immune cells in the brain) to their cultures reduced vascular deterioration and boosted neuronal health.
Read more about Alzheimer’s disease research in the Young Lab
Re-Examining the Role of Helper Cells in the Heart
In a recent paper published in Science, an ISCRM research team of biologists, engineers, and physicians showed that fibroblasts, often thought of as helpers, may sometimes weaken the heart by causing a harmful cycle of stiffening and scarring. Faculty members Dr. Jen Davis, Dr. Mike Regnier, Dr. Nate Sniadecki, Dr. Cole DeForest, and Dr. Farid Moussavi-Harami all contributed to the study. The team demonstrated that shutting down a signaling pathway in the rogue fibroblasts restored heart functioning in laboratory models, a finding which could have therapeutic implications for dilated cardiomyopathy, which affects 1 in 250 people worldwide.
Gene Therapy Advances
Dr. Jeff Chamberlain and Dr. Hichem Tasfaout have been working for years on efficient ways to deliver large genes and proteins for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy and other inherited disorders. In a recent breakthrough, they were able to express the enormous dystrophin protein by packaging it in multiple smaller fragments across different adeno-associated (AAV) shuttle vectors and infusing them into blood vessels for efficient, whole body gene transfer. This approach, which the researchers believe will work for a variety of diseases, restored cardiac, muscle, and respiratory function in a mouse model of muscular dystrophy, and allowed for effective targeting of muscles at lower, less toxic doses compared to previous gene therapy technologies.
In other news: Hichem Tasfaout received a three-year grant from A Foundation Building Strength (AFBS) to create and test the first-ever gene therapy for a form of Nemaline Myopathy (NIM), a potential major leap forward for treatment of muscle diseases linked to large, complex genes.
UW Researchers Engineer a Jello Mold for Studying Cell Behavior
Advances in tissue engineering have helped biomedical researchers design and test therapies for a wide range of diseases with increasing speed and accuracy. More precise control over the composition and spatial arrangement of tissues in an experiment would make it possible for scientists to model complex diseases more accurately and to carefully study border regions where healthy and diseased tissues meet or where bones and ligaments connect. This year, a team of UW researchers, including Dr. Nate Sniadecki and Dr. Cole DeForest, unveiled a new device that will enable scientists to create models of human tissue with even greater control and complexity. The 3D-printed tool provides tissue engineers with the ability to examine how cells respond to various mechanical and physical cues, while creating distinct regions in a suspended tissue.
Choosing the Right Ink for Your Bioprinter
“For the first time, technologies and approaches that we once considered to be science fiction, like 3D printing organs, are moving beyond proof of principle. Our challenge now is to eliminate the guesswork that is slowing down the development of human tissue therapies.”
– Dr. Kelly Stevens
Bioprinting is an emerging technology that scientists use to 3D print living cells. The goal is to someday engineer organs. To do that, scientists will need to choose “bioink” for the tissue they are hoping to print, a task that currently involves a great deal of guesswork, given that any bioink will likely contain a mix of multiple types of living cells and some variety of plastic, polymer, or other human-made materials. Because there are so many possible permutations, and because there is still so much to learn about the interplay of biological and synthetic materials, and indeed about human biology itself, the process of testing the safety and functionality of each bioink remains expensive and laborious, especially in animal trials. Stevens believes one solution to the bottleneck may be at-hand.
In other news: Dr. Kelly Stevens (with Dr. Adam Feinberg from Carnegie Mellon University) received up to $28.5 million from ARPA-H to bioprint human liver tissues.
ISCRM STEM Camp in Chehalis
Over the course of two science-packed days in a summer STEM camp, dozens of ISCRM trainees and faculty members led activities focused on organ physiology, DNA, biomaterials, the neuromuscular system, tissue regeneration, and much more. With names like Brains and Beanbags: Neuroplasticity Cornhole, Hop into Regeneration, and Pump it Up: What Makes Our Hearts Beat, the sessions blended serious science with interactive play, involving silly string, cotton candy, food labels, giant bags of balloons, and even patches that had traveled to the International Space Station. Students extracted their own DNA, held real human organs, mapped the heart’s electrical system, and explored futuristic technologies like biomaterials and kidney chips.
Spotlight on Collaboration: The DeForest Research Group
For ISCRM, collaboration has always been a point of pride and a driver of scientific progress. In 2025, the DeForest Research Group, led by Dr. Cole DeForest, joined forces with at least ten ISCRM labs on research efforts that are arming the biomedical field with increasingly sophisticated ways to model and control cells and tissues in three, and even four, dimensions – advances designed to revolutionize how diseases are studied, diagnosed, and treated at their root causes. Two of these investigations are described in this report. The DeForest Research Group also led the way on multiple studies, including one that unveiled a high-tech method for controlling the delivery of therapeutic proteins equipped with tiny “smart tails” and another that described a method for engineering tiny popup workstations inside living cells. To cap off a landmark year, Dr. DeForest was promoted to full professor and celebrated with an Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award (based on nominations from students)!
NIH Trailblazer Award for Feini (Sylvia) Qu
What if we could regenerate musculoskeletal tissue and grow a limb outward using biomaterials that release growth factors, or proteins that can help form bones and joints, at controlled times and locations? Dr. Feini (Sylvia) Qu has received a $400,000 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Trailblazer Award to pursue new possibilities in digit regeneration. Funding will support efforts in the Qu Lab to create a platform that can precisely control when and where to release two different growth factors through injected microgels, with the goal of regenerating a digit tip.
The researchers plan to use magnetic microgels to deliver the protein that can elongate bones to the edge of the bone, then release the protein that can induce a new joint to form at the end of the new bone — a step toward regenerating a whole limb.
Read more about digit regeneration
UW Scientists Pursue Gene Therapy to Regenerate Lost Cells Required for Vision
Diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy cause the gradual death of retinal neurons and as a result impair our ability to see. While there are medical treatments to slow the loss of retinal neurons, there are no medical strategies to replace the neurons that were lost and hopefully restore vision. Gene therapy is a promising strategy, but how to transport healthy genes to the retina remains a challenge. Now, researchers led by Dr. Tom Reh have produced the clearest evidence yet that genes delivered by adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors can stimulate regeneration in the mammalian retina.
Research Awards and Fellowships
Tietze Award Winners
Dr. Smita Yadav and Dr. Nobuhiko (Nobu) Hamazaki received prestigious awards from the John H. Tietze Foundation Trust that will fuel promising research underway in their labs.
The 2025 John H. Tietze Stem Cell Scientist Award will allow the Yadav Lab to develop neuronal and 3D brain organoid models to understand the causes of a devastating neurodegenerative disorder that has onset in infancy. The focus of their investigation will be on a gene, known as TBCK, which has been linked to autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, and intellectual disabilities that impair speech and language functioning.
With the Jaconette L. Tietze Young Scientist Award, the Hamazaki Lab will build a stem cell-derived human embryo model that will allow the team to study how genetic variants and environmental fluctuations reshape early cell fate decisions, highlighting disease-related pathways and ultimately guiding new strategies for prevention and therapy.
UW Bothell Fellows
Support from Eileen and Larry Tietze, along with the UW Bothell Founders Endowment, allows ISCRM to provide UW Bothell students with paid research fellowships in ISCRM labs, in conjunction with the ISCRM Fellows Program.
Rishita Bhattacharyya (Johnsen)
Rubin Koshy (Robinson)
Davis Liu (Campbell)
Samayya Mohamud (Wayne)
State Funded Awards
State-funded ISCRM Innovation Pilot Awards and Fellowships enable faculty and students to advance research efforts aimed at addressing the root causes of diseases. Congratulations to the following 2025-2026 awardees and fellows!
Innovation Pilot Award Winners
| Dr. Thelma Escobar | Dr. Jennifer Kong |
| Dr. Jenny Robinson and Dr. Ronald Young Kwon | Dr. David Shechner |
| Dr. Cory Simpson | Dr. Alec Smith |
ISCRM Fellows
Graduate Student Fellows
| Divya Avnoor (Mack) | Nic Buchholz (Ruohola-Baker) |
| Theresa Chen (Cherry) | Lei Gao (Kong) |
| Brenda Garibay (Escobar) | Dorice Goune (Stevens) |
| Ramila Gulieva (Freedman) | Chrystal Guzman (Cirulli) |
| Sofia Jepson (Mack) | Janie Johnson (Robinson) |
| Caleb Kono (Ruohola-Baker) | Michael Malone (Sniadecki) |
| Catherine Nguyen (Qu) | Karina Schmidt (Simpson) |
| Sonia Sidhu (Young) | Charlie Thel (Davis) |
| Maria Vishnyakova (Kelly) |
ISCRMU Fellows
Sumin Hong (Zheng)
Noah Jackson Bowers (Marchiano)
Cristian Gonzalez (Cherry)
Aleah Rosner (Young)
Olivia Waters (Yang)
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Evelyn Abraham (Reh)
Celebrations
Dr. Jay Shendure has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, an independent, nonprofit organization committed to nonpartisan, evidence-based leadership.
Dr. Cory Simpson received a second grant from the LEO Foundation. The award, called a “Serendipity Grant,” provides a total of $620,000 over two years. This grant will allow the Simpson Lab to follow up on exciting and unexpected findings from the original three-year grant, which leveraged their human tissue model of Hailey-Hailey disease, a rare genetic skin blistering disorder that lacks any FDA-approved therapy.
Dr. Min (Mia) Yang has received an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award that will enable her lab to recreate key aspects of early embryonic development and, hopefully, point the field toward new ways to improve maternal health, enhance fertility treatments, control unwanted cell growth, and harness the body’s natural capacity for regeneration.
Dr. Shelly Sakiyama-Elbert has been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences in recognition of her national leadership in biomedical research, research policy, and graduate education, including pioneering novel drug delivery approaches for regenerative medicine applications in the nervous system.
Dr. Beno Freedman, Dr. Hongxia Fu, and Dr. Nicole Vo were among the winners of an NIH-sponsored challenge called the TARGETED Prize (Phase II), a competition designed to improve technologies for delivering genome editing tools to specific cells or tissues in the body.
Thank you!
We are grateful to the generous supporters who have helped ISCRM become an engine of discovery in the field of regenerative medicine. If you’d like to learn more about how philanthropic investments fuel our work, please contact Laura Rosendo, senior director of philanthropy, at lrosendo@uw.edu.