The Board of the Foundation for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation has awarded Jason Silver, MD, PhD, a physical medicine & rehabilitation resident at the University of Washington School of Medicine, the Richard Materson ERF New Investigator Research Grant Award. Dr. Silver receives this award for his project - Bioengineered muscle tissues to assess muscle stem cell fate decisions with aging. The grant amounts to $10,000 for a one-year period.
Dr. Silver paved a career path that integrates tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and rehabilitation science. His longstanding interest in stem cell biology and biomaterials guided him toward becoming a physician-scientist in PM&R, with the overarching goal of advancing therapies for those with musculoskeletal injuries.
“My PhD focused on how muscle stiffness impacts muscle stem cell biology and drew me towards PM&R residency to help patients recover from muscle injury. Now with this project, I am developing tools to study changes in muscle regeneration with aging. My long-term goal is to become a physician scientist who investigates how chronic pain alters muscle physiology and develops new therapies for muscle-derived pain. Towards this goal, I plan pursue a fellowship in pain medicine after residency to master clinical pain management,” says Dr. Silver.
The grant is Dr. Silver’s first as a principal investigator, a key milestone in establishing his independent trajectory and securing funding for his own research program/lab in the future.
“This proposal will expand muscle aging research by using organoids to study muscle stem cell behaviors that were previously restricted to animal models or humans. This will open a new frontier in translational research on muscle aging by providing a human-relevant platform to test interventions that could reduce or prevent sarcopenia,” says Dr. Silver.
The Richard Materson ERF New Investigator Research Grant Award provides critical early-career funding to support young investigators in the field of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R). Dr. Silver hopes the Materson New Investigator Grant will lay the essential groundwork, marking the first step toward a career as an independent scientist in physiatry.
About the Foundation for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
The Foundation for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation is committed to advancing the science and practice of physical medicine and rehabilitation by supporting research and education. Through competitive grants and awards, the Foundation fosters innovation, cultivates future leaders, and enhances patient care in the field of rehabilitation medicine.