Regenerative and Movement Biology
Our group seeks to understand the principles that govern skeletal muscle regeneration, a key cellular process necessary for the repair of damaged muscle tissue due to injury or disease. To achieve this goal, we use as a research paradigm stem cells, which are unique cells that can both self-renew and differentiate into specialized and functional cells. As evidenced in our previous research, muscle stem/progenitor cells can be generated and expanded in vitro from somatic cells by a cellular reprogramming approach that combines transcription factor overexpression in conjunction with small molecules treatment. Our current research focus is directed towards investigating the genetic, epigenetic and signaling pathways that allow this rewiring of cellular identity to occur. We further wish to elucidate to what extent this novel ex vivo muscle stem cell model recapitulates skeletal muscle regeneration in vivo. To this end, we employ transgenic mouse models, cell culture techniques, genome editing and bioinformatic tools to delineate how muscle stem cells are generated, and elucidate their role in muscle regeneration and repair. Our long-term goal is to harness this mechanistic knowledge to develop stem cell-based therapeutic approaches to treat diseases involving degenerative loss of muscle mass.