Lauren Covert, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Duke University School of Medicine, is one of 10 recipients of the 2024 Hartwell Individual Biomedical Research Awards. Covert will receive $100,000 a year for the next three years for her project, “Bioengineered Human Muscle as a Platform for Drug Discovery and a Cure for Juvenile Dermatomyositis."
Dermatomyositis is a rare but serious condition that typically causes muscle weakness and rashes in children. Current treatment options have many side effects and do not cure the disease, leaving children with lasting chronic debilitation in adulthood.
Covert’s award from The Harwell Foundation will support advancements in the field of pediatric rheumatology. Her research aims to develop a bioengineered muscle tissue model from human muscle tissue to mimic the disease.
“This model will be able to test hypotheses on what causes the disease,” Covert said. “From there, we may be able to identify safer, more targeted treatment options.”
Covert’s research could help identify important disease mechanisms of juvenile dermatomyositis, which would then lead to novel therapies that can be tested in a patient-centric model.
If successful, this model could also serve as a guiding template that could be applied to other pediatric rare diseases.
“This work will help us advance our understanding of this disease,” Covert said, “and may allow us to offer less toxic, more effective treatments that could improve patients’ quality of life, decrease side effects, and prevent complications from undertreated diseases.”
Duke has been designated as one of The Hartwell Foundation’s Top Ten Centers of Biomedical Excellence every year since 2006. Each year, the Foundation invites each Top Ten Center to nominate three researchers to compete for Hartwell Individual Biomedical Research Awards for early-stage, innovative, and cutting-edge biomedical research with the potential to benefit children’s health.