Researchers in Wayne State’s physical therapy program in the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (EACPHS) have received a new R03 grant from the National Institutes of Health. The grant provides $100,000 to perform pilot studies to test if muscle-generating cells present in donor skeletal muscle tissue obtained from human cadavers and from mice can produce new muscle fibers when implanted into host mouse muscle.

The research will also test whether muscle contractions elicited by neuromuscular electrical stimulation can increase donor cell-mediated muscle fiber formation. The hope is that the research will lead to new treatment options for persons suffering from muscle loss and weakness in disease conditions, such as non-lethal muscular dystrophies.

The grant proposal from Joseph Roche, assistant professor and principal investigator, and Sujay Galen, interim director and co-investigator, scored in the top 3 percent by the NIH.

“The strength of this project is the bringing together of principles and tools from the fields of physical therapy and rehabilitation science, muscle biology, and biomedical engineering,” said Roche.

Both Roche and Galen attribute the success of their proposal to training in grantsmanship, critical reviews of their proposal, guidance from senior scientists and program officers, and resources for research, all of which are possible through support from the physical therapy program, the Department of Health Care Sciences, and EACPHS.

Research on this project is expected to begin this summer.

The grant number for this National Institutes of Health award is HD091648.