Sharon Gerecht, an assistant professor of chemical and molecular engineering at JHU's Whiting School of Engineering, is the proud beneficiary of some 460,000 dollars, which she has received in order to continue her research of transforming stem cells into blood vessels, a technology that could potentially help doctors treat such diseases as diabetes, various heart conditions, and others.

The goal of her research is to provide answers to a very important question in stem cell research, more specifically what exactly happens when these cells differentiate, and how can scientists intervene in order to get the results they want?

Gerecht has to find a way to synthesize blood vessels, while at the same time preventing other types of tissues from forming out of the same batch of stem cells. This may prove to be very difficult to do, which is the main reason why the $310,000 she has received from the American Heart Association are spread over a four-year period.

She has gotten the other $150,000 from the March of Dimes Foundation, as part of a two year-long grant, and are dedicated to the same purpose. If her research is successful, then a number of breakthrough cures could be devised in a relative short period of time, which would address some of the most dangerous and widespread diseases in the world today.

“Stem cell research has generated lots of excitement because it has so much potential to help so many people who are ill or injured. But we don't have a very good understanding of what's going on when stem cells change into a certain type of tissue, and we can't control the transformation with much precision. We're trying to learn more about what causes these cells to develop and differentiate. With this knowledge in hand, we can make medical applications involving stem cells more successful and more reliable,” the scientist says.

“To be able to do that, we need to understand much more about the underlying molecular events. Then, we can manipulate these events to get the new blood vessels that we want,” she concludes.