Grants We Funded
Grant applicants for the 2023 cycle requested a total of nearly $4 million dollars. The PSF Study Section Subcommittees of Basic & Translational Research and Clinical Research evaluated nearly 140 grant applications on the following topics:
The PSF awarded research grants totaling over $1 million dollars to support nearly 30 plastic surgery research proposals.
ASPS/PSF leadership is committed to continuing to provide high levels of investigator-initiated research support to ensure that plastic surgeons have the needed research resources to be pioneers and innovators in advancing the practice of medicine.
Research Abstracts
Search The PSF database to have easy access to full-text grant abstracts from past PSF-funded research projects 2003 to present. All abstracts are the work of the Principal Investigators and were retrieved from their PSF grant applications. Several different filters may be applied to locate abstracts specific to a particular focus area or PSF funding mechanism.
Decellularized Lymph Nodes for Lymph Node Tissue Engineering
Daniel Cuzzone MD
2013
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Pilot Research Grant
Tissue Engineering, Breast (Cosmetic / Reconstructive)
Lymphedema is a common complication of cancer treatment resulting in significant morbidity and impaired quality of life. Recent studies have reported encouraging results from autologous lymph node transplantation to restore lymphatic circulation in this patient population. In these procedures, lymph nodes are harvested from an unaffected area such as the contralateral arm or groin and transferred microsurgically to the affected limb. Yet, widespread adoption of this technique has been hampered by concerns regarding donor site complications and lymphedema. This concern is valid since many patients who have developed lymphedema in their affected limb represent an at-risk population (i.e. are obese or have baseline impaired lymphatic transport) and since recent large scale oncologic studies have shown that even minor lymphatic injury resulting from sentinel lymph node biopsy can lead to lymphedema in 5-7% of patients. Therefore, development of alternative means to produce viable lymphatic constructs would represent a significant advance and avoid these potential complications. In this proposal we aim to test the hypothesis that decellularized allogeneic lymph nodes can be repopulated with autogenous lymphocytes and that these engineered constructs can be implanted in vivo to restore lymphatic circulation and immune function. The objective of this pilot grant application is to optimize decellularization of lymph node allografts and to test the efficacy of these constructs to restore lymphatic circulation and immune function in a mouse model. Our long-term goals are to use these techniques in larger animal models to optimize microvascular transfer and clinically translate our approach. Our experience with lymphedema models in mice and previous work elucidating the mechanisms of fibrosis in lymphedema will serve as a relevant background and make us uniquely positioned to achieve our objectives.
Dr. Daniel Cuzzone was raised in Norwalk, CT and completed his undergraduate studies in Neuroscience at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. He subsequently went on to obtain his medical degree from the University of Connecticut. Dr. Cuzzone has completed three years of general surgery residency at New York University Medical Center, which has been followed by a prestigious research fellowship at Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center under the guidance of Dr. Babak J. Mehrara, MD, FACS. Dr. Cuzzone has focused his research efforts on better elucidating the cellular and molecular mechanisms that are responsible for the pathogenesis of lymphedema. Under the supervision of Dr. Mehrara, Dr. Cuzzone will concentrate his efforts on lymphatic tissue engineering in an attempt to define better treatment modalities for the management of lymphedema.