NEWS

Mat was invited to present on our lab's latest research at the Functional Diabetic Limb Salvage: A Team Approach conference in Washington DC. The lecture was part of the H. Paul Ehrlich Rising Star in Wound Healing Award that he was awarded in 2025 by the Wound Healing Foundation.

Mat's invited lecture was entitled: "Dysfunctional Immune Cell Interactions Drive Chronic Inflammation in Diabetes-Impaired Wound Healing."

Multiple lab members presented their work and won awards at the UIC College of Dentistry Clinic & Research Day on March 5 --- congratulations to everyone!!

Avin presented her poster entitled: "Tensile Forces Drive Fibroblast Transition Toward Contractile Phenotypes." (1st place in DSRG Peer Award category for graduate students!)

Khushroop presented her poster entitled: "Fibroblast Heterogeneity During Post-traumatic Injury in the Craniofacial Musculoskeletal System." (2nd place in DSRG Peer Award category for graduate students!)

Shay presented her posted entitled: "Gingival and Dermal Keratinocyte-Fibroblast Interactions in 3D Co-Culture." (3rd place in Basic Sciences category for graduate students!)

Jessica presented her poster entitled: Single-cell Analysis of Structural and Immune Cell Interactions in Periodontitis." 

Dr. Jessica Castillo successfully defended her thesis and obtained her MS in Oral Sciences --- Congratulations!!! 

She was also selected to give an oral presentation as part of a research competition at the Midwest Society of Periodontology, Graduate Student Research Forum. Her presentation was entitled: "Single-cell Analysis of Structural and Immune Cell Interactions in Periodontitis."

Nathan Henning, PhD, joined the Wietecha Lab in the Department of Oral Biology as a postdoctoral fellow on January 16th. He received his PhD in Life Sciences from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, where he worked at the interface between biology, bioengineering, and proteomics towards the development of a transplantable ovarian bio-prosthetic. He furthered this work during his recently completed postdoctoral position at Northwestern University, where he focused on leveraging the PiMS proteomics imaging platform to investigate ovarian cancer, kidney transplant quality, and foundational biology in the pancreas. He brings a diverse array of skills from his 10 years of experience in research, from bioprinting to omics data analysis. He is excited to begin work on wound healing research and looks forward to meeting and collaborating with the rest of the department. During his spare time, Nathan enjoys reading, traveling, tabletop gaming, and spending time with his wife and their cat.

Shay and Mat were invited to present their abstracts submitted to the Wound Healing Society (WHS) Annual Meeting held April 30-May 3 in Grapevine, TX at various oral sessions. 

Shay's presentation in the oral session "Molecular Insights and Therapeutic Advances in Acute Wound Healing" was entitled: "A Visual Narrative Protocol for Using R to Analyze a Single-cell Transcriptomics Dataset of Mouse Skin Wound Healing." 

Mat's presentation in the oral session "Bridging Bench to Bedside in Chronic Wound Research" was entitled: "Single-Cell Multi-Omics of Mouse Diabetic Wound Healing Reveals Stromal Cell Crosstalk Dysfunction." 

Mat also presented an invited lecture as part of the WHS Awardee Spotlight session after winning the 2024 WHS Research Grant Award, entitled: "Network-Based Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Wound Healing."

Ethan presented his poster at the annual UIC Undergraduate Research Forum, co-authored with Nichole and entitled: "Molecular Insights Into Wound Healing: Integrating Bulk and Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Across Tissues and Species." 

He then graduated with a BS in Biological Sciences from UIC and the Honors College in May --- Congratulations!!!

Jonny was invited to present his abstract submitted to the American Association for Dental and Craniofacial Research (AADOCR) Annual Meeting held March 12-15 in New York City at the oral session "Multi-omics and Large Data Set Analysis in Oral Cancer and Homeostasis." His presentation was entitled: "Spatial Transcriptomics of Microenvironmental Niches in Periodontitis and Oral Cancer." 

Multiple lab members presented their work and won awards at the UIC College of Dentistry Clinic & Research Day on February 27 --- congratulations to everyone!!

Mohammad presented his poster entitled: "Single-cell RNA-Seq Analysis of Stromal Cell Dynamics in a Mouse Model of Wound Healing." (1st place in Basic Sciences category for dental students & 2nd place in SRG Peer Award category for dental students!)

Avin presented her poster entitled: "Biomechanichal Pathways Contributing to Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma." (2nd place in SRG Peer Award category for graduate students!)

Jonny presented his poster entitled: "Spatial Transcriptomics of Microenvironmental Niches in Periodontitis and Oral Cancer." (1st place in Basic Sciences category for residents!)

Shay presented her posted entitled: "Transcriptomic Differences Between Oral and Skin Keratinocyte Healing Responses."

Our lab’s first major grant, the Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) for Early Stage Investigators (ESI), was awarded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences! The project title is: "Spatio-temporal cellular dynamics regulating differential healing outcomes."

Click here to check out the NIH RePORTER profile of the project.

Written by UIC COD's Smile of the Week: "From May 14-18, the Wound Healing Society convened its annual meeting in Orlando, Florida. During the event, Dr. Mat Wietecha was honored with the Research Grant Award by the Wound Healing Society. This acknowledgment underscores the Wound Healing Society's dedication to advancing biomedical research and excellence in wound healing practices, reinforcing its pivotal role in shaping the future of the field and fostering collaboration among its members." 

[Pictured is Dr. Wietecha with Dr. Traci Wilgus, WHS President]

Kartik Dixit presented a poster at the annual UIC Undergraduate Research Forum. His poster was entitled: "Investigating the major cell-cell interactions and signaling pathways involved in the process of wound healing." 

He then graduated with a BS in Biological Sciences from UIC in May --- Congratulations!!!

Dr. Omar Shehab successfully defended his thesis and obtained his MS in Oral Sciences --- Congratulations!!! 

He also presented a poster at UIC College of Dentistry's annual Clinic & Research Day on March 7, 2024. His poster was entitled: "Exploring periodontitis-associated fibroblast interactions via single-cell RNA sequencing."