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SELECTBIO Conferences The Space Summit 2021

Siobhan Malany's Biography



Siobhan Malany, Associate Professor, University of Florida and Founder, Micro-gRx

Dr. Malany is a drug discovery pharmacologist and space researcher. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Florida. She holds six pending and issued patents, one of which was licensed to AlloRock to develop guanylyl cyclase A positive allosteric modulators as therapeutics for resistant hypertension. She has sent four payloads to the ISS since 2014 and is investigating effects of microgravity on human muscle biology using functional devices called “tissue chips”as a micro-scale model of musculoskeletal disease. She is part of the Central Florida Cluster Initiative to expand economic opportunities in the region. Dr. Malany holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Iowa and completed postdoctoral training in pharmacology at the University of San Diego and was an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the Max Plank Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, Germany. She started her pharmacology career in the biotechnology industry in San Diego before moving to Florida in 2011 to lead a chemical biology drug discovery team at the Sanford Burnham Chemical Genomics Center in Orlando. There, a trip to see the last Endeavor launch sparked an interest in space research.

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Skeletal Muscle Tissue Chip for Studying Contractile Differences Between Young and Old-derived Cells in Gravity and Microgravity Environments

Friday, 1 October 2021 at 13:00

Add to Calendar ▼2021-10-01 13:00:002021-10-01 14:00:00Europe/LondonSkeletal Muscle Tissue Chip for Studying Contractile Differences Between Young and Old-derived Cells in Gravity and Microgravity EnvironmentsThe Space Summit 2021 in BostonBostonSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

Aging and spaceflight share similar physiological effects on muscle atrophy and effective countermeasures are needed for both Earth and Space applications. We have validated a microfluidic microphysiological system (MPS) that demonstrates electrically stimulated contraction of human-engineered muscle myobundles derived from muscle biopsies from older, sedentary (OS) adults compared to those derived from young, athletic (YA) adults as a model of age-related muscle disfunction. After 16 days in culture, the engineered myobundles receive an intermittent daily pulse sequence for 8 days. The number and thickness of fused and striatal myofibers and contraction magnitude are increased in the OS group and begin to resemble the YA phenotype indicating the cells retain their donor phenotype and respond to external stimuli by triggering protein synthesis. Drug treatment with Tomatadine, a natural anabolic compound changes contractile function in both cohorts and will also be discussed. Our YA and OS-derived myobundles were integrated into an autonomous laboratory and sent to the ISS for 10 days on Space X CRS-21 during which time, on-orbit, real-time contraction was downlinked.


Add to Calendar ▼2021-09-30 00:00:002021-10-01 00:00:00Europe/LondonThe Space Summit 2021The Space Summit 2021 in BostonBostonSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com