Purushothama Rao Tata, PhD, assistant professor of cell biology and medicine, is one of two investigators named to receive 2022 Rising Star Awards from the International Society for Regenerative Biology. The Rising Star Award is presented to early career researchers charting new directions and making novel scientific contributions in regenerative biology research.
Tata lab research focuses on understanding the cellular ensembles of organ regeneration at single cell resolution in the lung and other epithelial tissues. To study the behavior of lung cells, Tata lab developed innovative 3-dimensional organoid models, aka “mini lungs in a dish.” These models allow for dissecting genetic and epigenetic pathways that govern human lung tissues at single cell resolution. Using these models, the Tata lab has uncovered new cell types and cell states in normal human lungs and implicated a role for these news cells in human lung diseases. His innovative work on the lung has broad relevance to other organ systems and to regenerative biology at large.
The other 2022 Rising Star Award winner is Mayssa Mokalled, PhD, an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Mokalled trained at Duke University School of Medicine as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Ken Poss, PhD, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Cell Biology.
Tata and Mokalled will each receive a medal and present a lecture during the European Molecular Biology Organization Workshop, “The Molecular and Cellular Basis of Regeneration and Tissue Repair,” in Barcelona, Spain, in September.