THE FACE OF THE FUTURE

Assistant bioengineering professor John P. Fisher likes to think of himself as "a young guy, still just a kid."

And while his appearance matches that description, the fact that he was one of only 24 researchers out of more than 80 applicants to receive a state grant from the Maryland Stem Cell Commission last month shows he is an advanced researcher in his field and someone who may soon make waves in the field of stem cell research.

Established under the Maryland Stem Cell Research Act of 2006, the commission is responsible for allocating state funding to local researchers interested in working with stem cells for medical purposes. While most of the grants awarded last month went to professors from Johns Hopkins University or University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Fisher brought the only grant to this university for his proposal to use stem cells to research how to treat injuries to sensitive bones in the face.

Since 2004, Fisher has lead a biomaterials lab on the campus that focuses on cranial bone regeneration, particularly regenerating bone of the eye socket. According to Fisher, the floor of the eye socket is very thin, and facial trauma often leads to serious deficiencies and deformities because it is difficult for the body to regrow bone around the socket on its own.

"Regrowth then becomes a problem because below the eye socket is the sinus, which is basically just an open cavity," Fisher said. "There is no boney tissue around to help initiate regeneration. There is nothing to help heal."

Because stem cells have the ability to replicate any cell in the body - as opposed to regular cells that can only replicate into more of themselves - they could potentially be trained to copy and recreate facial bone cells. In his lab, Fisher has been trying to train adult stem cells derived from the bone marrow of rats to do just that. With the state grant, however, he will now be able to use human adult stem cells.

Different from the controversial embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells are found in bone marrow, and can even be found in fat. While the grant allows for work with both embryonic and adult stem cells, Fisher will only be working with adult stem cells because he considers them more practical and appropriate for his research.

By doing his research with human cells as opposed to rat cells, Fisher will be one step closer to achieving his goal of helping patients, some of whom are brought in to the university's medical center in downtown Baltimore. The staff there is working in conjunction with Fisher and are familiar with the types of injuries that Fisher hopes his research will help to treat.

"They unfortunately deal with facial trauma on a daily basis," Fisher said.

In order to receive the grant, Fisher had to submit a research proposal to the Maryland Stem Cell Commission that was then reviewed by a panel of scientists who were neither from Maryland nor seeking stem cell research grants themselves, said Linda Powers, chair of the commission. Without knowing who the authors of the proposals were, the scientific peer review panel wrote recommendations that were then relied "pretty heavily" on by the commission to select the 24 researchers who were to be given grants, Powers said.

Powers said the commission did not even know if they were dealing with a school or a company when reviewing the recommendations.

The fact that Fisher was awarded the grant did not come as a surprise to Bill Bentley, chair of the bioengineering department, who said Fisher is "extremely intelligent and hardworking."

Nor did it surprise Andrew Thompson, an undergraduate student who works in Fisher's lab. Thompson also called Fisher hardworking, and followed that statement by saying Fisher is "always in his office no matter how early I come in."

Thompson said Fisher is "also fairly laid-back and easy to work for."

"Dr. Fisher has been a fantastic mentor to me," Thompson said. "I've encountered more obstacles and setbacks than I care to recall in the past three years - but through it all, Dr. Fisher managed to keep me motivated to continue on."

Fisher came to Maryland in 2003. At that time, "bioengineering hadn't been the emphasis of the college of engineering," Fisher said, and he saw "a great opportunity for me to make an impact."

With the state grant, that impact may soon reach a great number of medical patients.

"This is not an exciting experiment in technology," Fisher said. "We do it to ultimately help patients' lives."

Contact reporter Clara

Morris at newsdesk@dbk.umd.edu.