UPMC: Expert appointed in Regenerative Medicine and Wound Care
Chandan Sen, Ph.D., M.S., a renowned expert in regenerative medicine and pioneer of novel wound care technologies, will join the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC this summer, bringing a large scientific and clinical team and a considerable research portfolio to Pittsburgh.
Sen will join Pitt’s faculty as professor of surgery, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Plastic Surgery. He will also hold leadership roles as associate vice chancellor for life sciences innovation and commercialization and the newly established positions of co-director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Pitt and chief scientific officer of UPMC Wound Healing Services.
“It’s impossible to encapsulate the collective impact of Chandan’s pioneering research and continuing breakthroughs in tissue repair and regeneration,” said Anantha Shekhar, M.D., Ph.D., senior vice chancellor for the Pitt Schools of the Health Sciences and John and Gertrude Petersen Dean at Pitt’s School of Medicine. “The work of the Sen team will accelerate Pitt’s momentum in research areas that are key to the future of the region and drive collaboration with other biomedical innovators, including Carnegie Mellon University.”
Chandan Sen releaseSen, who is coming to Pittsburgh from Indiana University (IU), will start his new appointments at Pitt and UPMC on July 1 and will be bringing a team of more than two dozen faculty, postdoctoral associates and staff from IU. They include Gayle Gordillo, M.D., who will be senior medical director of UPMC Wound Healing Services, overseeing policies for wound care delivery in 20 outpatient wound care centers starting Aug. 1.
Sen’s research focuses on developing therapies for chronic wounds, a potentially life-threatening condition that affects millions of people in the U.S. In patients with diabetes, foot ulcers are a common chronic wound with high amputation rates. Sen serves as the special projects chair of the Diabetic Foot Consortium, a multi-center, National Institutes of Health-funded network that aims to improve diabetic wound healing and prevent amputations among the 27 million adults int the U.S. who live with diabetes.
“The transformational leadership and reputation that Dr. Sen has forged in wound care and regenerative medicine, combined with the innovative spirit of UPMC, will foster a tremendous partnership,” said Timothy Billiar, M.D., executive vice president and chief scientific officer at UPMC and associate senior vice chancellor for clinical academics at Pitt.
Sen is known for the development of innovative nanotransfection technology that transforms skin tissue into other types of tissue, which can then be used for healing burns, treating injuries, replacing damaged or diseased tissues, and other therapies.
“Our entire incoming team is excited about the tremendous opportunity to join the Pitt-UPMC ecosystem, well known for its unmatched strength in fostering transformative advances in interdisciplinary biomedical and clinical research,” said Sen. “The McGowan Institute will be home to the Pennsylvania site of the Diabetic Foot Consortium, and the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard will serve as our satellite site. Clinical research across 20 UPMC wound care sites supported by innovative basic science research and industry partnerships will position the McGowan Institute as a national leader in this emergent health care discipline.”
Hailing from Kolkata, India, Sen earned an M.S. in human physiology from the University of Calcutta in 1990 and a Ph.D. in physiology from the University of Eastern Finland in 1994. He held faculty positions at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and The Ohio State University before joining IU in 2018, where he currently serves as associate vice president of research and associate dean of research at the School of Medicine and executive director of the Comprehensive Wound Center at IU Health. He also holds the J. Stanley Battersby Chair and serves as a distinguished professor of surgery, director of the Indiana Center for Regenerative Medicine and Engineering, and executive director of the Comprehensive Wound Care Center at IU Methodist Hospital.
Sen has authored more than 350 peer-reviewed publications and more than a dozen books, and he serves as editor-in-chief for Advances in Wound Care and Antioxidants & Redox Signaling. He was elected to the National Academy of Inventors in 2021, and his novel tissue nanotransfection technology received an Edison Award for Innovation in 2018.