Two additional projects to study muscle regeneration granted to Dr. Jiang as part of an ongoing DARPA REPAIR: Regenerative Electronic Platform through Advanced Intelligent Regulation collaborative research program led by the University of Pittsburgh

Dr. Peng Jiang, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences (BGES) and a member of the Center for Gene Regulation in Health and Disease (GRHD), has been awarded two new grants under a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) cooperative agreement that funds research in the fields of artificial intelligence, bioelectronics, and regenerative medicine to re-grow damaged muscle tissue. The DARPA REPAIR program includes researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Cleveland State University, Carnegie Mellon University, Northwestern University, Rice University, University of Vermont, and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Of particular interest to DARPA is improving muscle healing when the muscle has sustained more that 20% damage, which is common in combat injuries. When muscles experience that level of damage, the tissue does not regenerate well and is replaced by scars that result in the loss of function. The two grants will provide over $1 million to support Dr. Jiang's lab as the team to study (a) Project 1: wound fibrosis (scarring or thickening of muscles during healing; and (b) Project 2: Wound repair in the context of infection.

Dr. Jiang began work under the DARPA award while at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has continued to expand his DARPA-funded research at CSU. His research focuses on computational algorithms and tools to model multi-omics data (e.g., genomics, transcriptomics, and epigenetics) and determine patterns that are of interest to gene regulation in development, regenerative biology, and human diseases.
Learn more about Dr. Jiang's lab and research here.