James Lee, emeritus professor with the William G. Lowrie Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Ohio State’s College of Engineering, co-led a study that developed a new regenerative medicine technology. Called Tissue Nanotransfection (TNT), this nanochip technology provides an electric spark to skin cells that is harmless to the body and reprograms nerve cells, blood vessels, and organs.
In research studies with mice and pigs, researchers were able to reprogram skin cells to become vascular cells and regenerated blood flow in injured areas that lacked blood flow previously. Not only does this technology have applicability in wound care, it has been able to reprogram skin cells into nerve cells that were injected into brain-injured mice to help them recover from strokes.