Collaboration among mission-driven scientists from multiple disciplines and perspectives is a way of life in the University of Washington research community and a recognition that the greatest challenges our world faces are bigger than any single lab or institute can solve alone.
In that spirit, more than 60 faculty and trainees from two of the largest multidisciplinary research institutes at the UW recently gathered in Foege Hall for the inaugural ISCRM – MolES Scientific Exchange – a meeting of the minds between the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine and the Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute.
The exchange was the shared brainchild of ISCRM Director Dr. Jennifer Davis, an associate professor of bioengineering and lab medicine and pathology, and MolES Director Dr. Suzie Pun, a professor of bioengineering and adjunct professor of chemical engineering.
“At ISCRM, we’re focused on harnessing the body’s natural regenerative abilities to address the root causes of chronic and inherited diseases,” says Davis. “To be successful in that effort – to bring safe, effective treatments to the clinic – we need to leverage every possible opportunity to access the most powerful tools and technologies available. We see MolES as experts in manipulating the cell and molecular machinery that will help the field drive regenerative medicine forward.”
“We’re collaborators and problem-solvers at heart,” says Pun. “Getting in a room with ISCRM is a golden opportunity for us to apply the technologies we are developing to help address one of the most widespread challenges we face – the human and economic toll of disease – while also opening up new training avenues for our trainees.”
The January 26th exchange featured 21 lightning talks from ISCRM and MoIES scientists on topics spanning tissue engineering, disease modeling, translational discoveries, cell fate, genomics, gene-editing, organoids, organ printing, and nanotechnology – and the applications of the these technologies for conditions impacting the heart, liver, skin, vision, muscle, brain, and other organs and systems.
One of the themes emerging through the mini-talks and the discussions was a need to be responsive to an NIH call for increased use of new approach methodologies (NAMS) that could reduce or replace the need for animal models in research.
“There are both ethical and practical reasons to develop new modeling systems,” says Davis. “Beyond the urge to conduct research in the most humane ways we can, there is the simple fact that animals are not people, which of course helps explain why so many drugs that look promising in early stage trials show disappointing results later on. This exchange could be a launching point for new ideas in human disease modeling that change this trajectory and push us closer to the clinic.”
Davis is particularly eager to improve on current modeling methods by establishing a human biofoundry within ISCRM where research teams can access the latest in synthetic and computational biology, genomics, and protein engineering tools and create multiscale, integrated physiological systems of human aging and chronic disease. She imagines MoIES scientists could help create the molecular components that the biofoundry would use to manufacture smart, self-healing genes and cells for next-level modeling and even targeted drug delivery.
Of course, turning talk into action takes investment. To incubate the kind of innovation they hope will lead to translational impact, the two institutes are offering competitive pilot award funding to support graduate students and supplies to help ISCRM and MoIES teams gather preliminary research for future grant applications.
Davis says a call for applications will go out in April.
“This is just a first step,” says Davis. “But I believe the energy in the room during our first event and the fact that we are able to put real resources behind this partnership will help us build momentum very quickly.”