Exploring Tongue Muscle Regeneration for Dysphagia
Presented by Michael Griffin, Ph.D. & Johnathon Anderson, Ph.D.
Originally Broadcast June 7, 2023
TAD Talk Description: Our bodies have amazing natural healing powers that help fix damaged tissues. When it comes to muscles, whether they get small tears from exercising or bigger tears from accidents, there are special cells in our muscles that help them recover. But sometimes, when people have dysphagia after getting treatment for head and neck cancer, the injured tissue doesn’t heal as well because of the extent of the injury and scarring. Cook MyoSite is working on a new treatment that could help with this problem in different ways. They want to bring more of these healing cells to the injured tissue. They do this by taking these cells from healthy muscle tissue in the person’s own body. By giving the injured muscles a lot of these healing cells, they hope to make them heal better. Cook MyoSite is working together with Dr. Peter Belafsky’s group at the University of California, Davis to study this treatment in a clinical trial for dysphagia. In this TAD Talk, members of the Cook MyoSite and UC Davis teams will explain the technology and how it is being used in the clinical trial for dysphagia.
Resources
Clinical trials page: Study Record | Beta ClinicalTrials.gov
Trial enrollment eligibility: Swallowing Disorders Stem Cell Clinical Trial: REVIVE (qualtrics.com)
Meet the Presenters
Michael Griffin, Ph.D.
Michael is a Product Manager at Cook MyoSite, Inc. in Pittsburgh, PA. Part of the Cook Group family of companies, Cook MyoSite’s primary focus is on the development of an autologous muscle cell therapy, which is being investigated in tongue dysphagia and three other clinical programs. Michael has spent the last 3 years working on the development of the tongue dysphagia program alongside Dr. Peter Belafsky and the research team at UC Davis. Prior to joining Cook MyoSite, Michael earned his Ph.D. in bioengineering and M.S. in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology after earning his B.S. in bioengineering from the University of Pittsburgh.
Johnathon D. Anderson, Ph.D.
Johnathon is a translational stem cell researcher and assistant professor at the University of California Davis in the department of Otolaryngology. Dr. Anderson’s background includes the development of stem cell therapies from early-stage, proof of concept studies, through the clinical trial pipeline. He is the project manager for REVIVE, a double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase II trial investigating the application of autologous muscle stem cell therapy for the treatment of dysphagia resulting from treatment toxicity associated with treatment of oropharyngeal cancer.
CEUs: No ASHA CEUs are offered for this webinar.
Cost: FREE. This webinar has been made free to all registrants thanks to a generous unrestricted educational grant provided by Bracco Diagnostics and the financial support of SimplyThick®.
