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Vanderbilt Center for Stem Cell Biology (VCSCB)

Lauren Woodard, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Medicine
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Research Description

We engineer gene and cell therapies for kidney disease. We use design principles of engineering to guide our experiments as we develop new medicines for the most common illnesses in nephrology.

  1. Kidney Regeneration. We design new strategies to treat acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease via regenerative medicine. We use mouse models and human 3D tissue culture systems, including kidney organoids. We focus on improving organ regeneration through transcription factor reprogramming and renal stem cells. We are studying the functional improvement and engraftment properties of urine-derived stem cells for kidney repair following acute kidney injury.
  2. Genome engineering. We investigate improvements to transposon systems and non-viral transfection techniques to further expand the available gene and cell therapy toolkit. Past and ongoing studies of transposase self-regulation continue to provide insights into how transposons function. Our expertise in recombinases, CRISPR/Cas systems, and transfection of cells and tissues allow exploration of regenerative gene therapies.

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