Stories
Skeletal muscle grown in a dish offers new insight for neuromuscular diseases
Neuromuscular diseases are debilitating and mostly incurable, affecting 160 out of every 100,000 people worldwide. Disorders such as ALS and multiple sclerosis impact the function of muscles, causing muscle wastage and loss …
USC Professor Megan McCain crafts an approach to tissue engineering
Megan McCain has always liked using her hands to create things, ranging from art projects to human heart cells that grow on silicon chips. “I’ve always loved building things and doing crafts, …
Scientists Justin Ichida and Dion Dickman: USC’s coolest tenured professors from Hawaii
Now that Justin Ichida and Dion Dickman are both tenured professors at USC, they no longer have to worry about who was the coolest kid in their elementary schools back in Honolulu. …
Brain development and disorder research receives $1.5 million NSF boost
The human brain is an incredibly complex organ to study in its living tissue form. Researchers cannot experiment on human tissue directly, and animal models are often too different to human physiology …
Megan McCain is one of six USC Viterbi faculty to win NSF CAREER Award
A record six assistant professors at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering — Megan McCain, Department of Biomedical Engineering; Mitul Luhar, Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engienering; Aleksandra Korolova and Haipeng Luo, Department of Computer Science; and Daniel …
How to mend a broken heart, if you’re a zebrafish
Cut a zebrafish’s heart and something remarkable happens. Within seconds, the fish clots the wound and stops the bleeding. Cells start to divide to make new heart muscle and blood vessels. Two …
USC Stem Cell junior faculty balance babies with biomedical research
Growing stem cells isn’t just something junior faculty do in the lab. Eight of the junior faculty in the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine recently welcomed new babies into …
USC researchers converge at the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Symposium
“The field of stem cell biology is one of our great convergence opportunities,” said USC Provost Michael Quick, addressing an audience of biologists, chemists, physicists, engineers, clinicians and many others. This diverse …
At the retreat for USC’s stem cell department, the students become the masters
Students and trainees took center stage at the annual retreat for USC’s Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. They presented their latest research to the 180 stem cell scientists who …
Growing hope: New organs? Not yet, but stem cell research is getting closer
If you lose a limb, it’s lost for life. If you damage a kidney, you won’t grow a new one. And if you have a heart attack, the scars are there to …
Creating new heart muscle out of stem cells? This grad student is doing it
In a narrow room not much larger than a closet, Joycelyn Yip reaches behind a glass shield to lower a pipette to a plate of silicon-coated glass. Swaddled in a sterile white …
Countdown to Commencement: Gio Suh builds muscles without exercising
“I’ve always wanted to be in a textbook and impact the world,” said Gio Suh, who is graduating in December 2017 from the master of science program in stem cell biology and …
Scientists get into detail at the retreat for USC’s stem cell department
“The process of disease is about detail,” said Larry Goldstein, the director of the stem cell program at the University of California, San Diego, and keynote speaker at the retreat for USC’s …
The faculty job search just got easier, thanks to two USC Stem Cell postdocs
“I think we’re all here for the same reason,” said Michaela Patterson, a postdoc in the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC. “We’re considering …
Megan McCain appointed to Chonette Early Career Chair
Megan McCain, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, has been honored with the Chonette Early Career Chair at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. As an …
Ching-Ling (Ellen) Lien awarded $1.7 million to study heart regeneration
Ching-Ling (Ellen) Lien, an investigator at The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) and principal investigator with USC Stem Cell, has been awarded nearly $1.7 million, over a four …
Bioengineering models for muscular dystrophy research
Studying muscular diseases proves extremely complicated. The current system of studying muscle cells and tissues using animal models is often inconclusive and cost-prohibitive. Looking to improve the status quo, Megan McCain—a Gabilan …
Megan McCain receives American Heart Association Faculty Award
Megan McCain has received a 2016 Scientist Development Grant from the American Heart Association. The three-year, $231,000 grant supports highly promising early career scientists in cardiovascular and stroke research. McCain—Gabilan Assistant Professor …
USC researchers use gelatin instead of the gym to grow stronger muscles
USC researcher Megan L. McCain and colleagues have devised a way to develop bigger, stronger muscle fibers. But instead of popping up on the bicep of a bodybuilder, these muscles grow on …
USC Stem Cell researchers receive the inaugural Broad Innovation Awards
Two teams of scientists have won the inaugural Eli and Edythe Broad Innovation Awards in Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at USC. This year’s competition provides $120,000 each to the teams …