Photo: Dr. Kelly Stevens and colleagues in the laboratory. Credit – UW Admissions / Morgan Dusatko
Kelly Stevens, UW assistant professor of bioengineering and pathology, has received the 2016 John H. Tietze Stem Cell Scientist Research Award from the UW Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine (ISCRM). This award recognizes Dr. Stevens’ efforts to address the clinical challenge of liver disease. Liver disease annually impacts over 500 million people and causes more than 2 million deaths wordwide. Dr. Stevens aims to build an artificial engineered liver using heptocytes derived from pluriopotent stem cells that could be implanted at a site external to the native damaged liver. This ‘satellite’ artificial liver could supply critical organ functions, and serve as a replacement for or bridge to organ transplant.
The John H. Tietze Stem Cell Scientist Award is a one year award of $25,000 (increased to $50,000 in 2015) to support the research of any faculty member of ISCRM who is pursuing novel preliminary experiments, where the grant might provide sufficient stimulus to enable the research to advance to the point of being competitive for external funding. The research should involve or be relevant to some aspect of stem or progenitor cell biology or therapies. Learn more about the John H Tietze Stem Cell Scientist Research Awards.