The ASPIRE Path in Molecular Medicine

I am a Pharmacology graduate student in the lab of Dr. Jonathan Schoenecker. Our lab focuses on mechanisms of musculoskeletal healing following injury and in the setting of severe disease. I specifically study the role of the fibrinolytic system and coagulation factors in tissue regeneration. My project is focused the enzyme plasmin and how it mediates and regulates inflammatory processes to direct healing. My goal is the understand how plasmin activity is altered following severe trauma and in chronic disease states in order to develop therapeutics in the future that may effectively restore this activity and enhance tissue healing.

Clinically, I am interested in patients with poor healing phenotypes such as diabetics, smokers, and older patients. My clinical mentor, Dr. Robert Boyce, is an orthopaedic trauma surgeon who treats patients with traumatic injuries and monitors their recovery. A large subset of his patients exhibit poor healing due to the severity of their trauma and other pre-existing diseases. In collaboration with Dr. Boyce, I hope to study how these diseases alter the fibrinolytic system in these patients in order to develop a greater understanding as to why they exhibit impaired tissue regeneration.