--Mission--
Our goal is to understand, model, and recapitulate in vitro the instructive signals utilized by human embryos to pattern tissue-specific differentiation of pluripotent stem cells, and apply this knowledge towards the rational design of tissue engineered scaffolds and other regenerative therapeutic strategies. Currently, we primarily focus on generating tissues and therapies for the central nervous system.
Featured News (May 15th, 2017), WKOWs "Wake Up Wisconsin" telecast
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Deriving, Regenerating, and Engineering CNS Tissues using Human Pluripotent Stem Cells
K Lemke, A Aghayee, RS Ashton (2017)
Current Opinion in Biotechnology
[dio.10.1016/j.copbio.2017.05.010]
The Case for Applying Tissue Engineering Methodologies to Instruct Human Organoid Morphogenesis
CA Marti-Figueroa, RS Ashton (2017)
Acta Biomaterialia [dio:10.1016/j.actbio.2017.03.023]
Chemically defined differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells to hindbrain and spinal cord neural stem cells with defined regional identities
ES Lippmann, MC Estevez-Silva, RS Ashton (2015)
Protocol Exchange [doi:10.1038/protex.2015.076]
High-content imaging with micropatterned multiwell plates reveals influence of cell geometry and cytoskeleton on chromatin dynamics
Harkness. T., McNulty, J.D., Prestil, R., Seymour, S.K., Klann, T., Murrell, M., Ashton, R. S. and Saha, K. (2015)
Biotechnology Journal. doi: 10.1002/biot.201400756
Deterministic HOX patterning in human pluripotent stem cell-derived neuroectoderm
ES Lippmann, CE Williams, DA Ruhl, MC Estevez-Silva, ER Chapman, JJ Coon, RS Ashton (2015)
Stem Cell Reports, 4(4): 632-44
Micropatterned, clickable culture substrates enable in situ spatiotemporal control of human PSC-derived neural tissue morphology
Knight GT, Sha J, Ashton RS (2015)
Chemical Communications, 51(25): 5238-5241
Ashton Group in the News
- Grant funds creation of spinal tissue from scratch in UW Madison Lab
- Ashton Lab funded to engineer a human spinal cord
- Prof. Ashton delivers a lecture in the International Society for Stem Cell Research's Stem Bioengineering Focus Session
- Ashton Lab cracks the (Zip)code of neural cells
- Ashton Lab awarded $1.18 million as part of the new, EPA supported H-MAPS Center at UW-Madison
- Prof. Ashton delivers a keynote talk at UW Madison's SCRMC Fall COnference 2014
- Collaboration between Ashton and Crone labs advances derivation of matured heart muscle cells
- Ashton, Saha receive Innovation in Regulatory Science Award
- Focus on new faculty: Ashton works to move medicine from treatment to cure
ASHTON LAB ANNOUNCEMENTS--
July 2017
Congratulations to Dr. Nisha Iyer for her acceptance to the 2017 NextProf Fall Engineering Workshop at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (Sept. 26-29, 2017).
June 2017
Congratulations to Maria Estevez-Silva for her presentation of “Towards an In Vitro Model of the Human Posterior CNS” at ISSCR 2017 in Boston, MA. Congratulations to Alireza Aghayee and Kristen Lemke for publishing “Deriving, Regenerating, and Engineering CNS Tissues using Human Pluripotent Stem Cells” in the journal Current Opinion in Biotechnology.
May 2017
Congratulations new graduates: Gavin Knight (PhD, BME), Maria Estevez-Silva (MS, BME), Akshitha Sreeram (BS, Neurobiology), Brady Lundin (BS, BME), and Kristen Lemke (BS, Chem Engineering)!
April 2017
Congratulations to graduate students Maria Estevez Silva, Carlos Marti-Figueroa, Gavin Knight, Brett Napiwocki, and undergraduate Akshitha Sreeram for presenting their research at the 2017 Stem Cell Symposium and the 2017 UW Madison Undergraduate Research Symposium.
March 2017
Congratulations to Carlos Marti-Figueroa for his research efforts and recent publication titled “The Case for Applying Tissue Engineering Methodologies to Instruct Human Organoid Morphogenesis” in the Journal Acta Biomaterialia.
February 2017
Randolph Ashton was awarded a NSF CAREER Award February 23rd, 2017. The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. Activities pursued by early-career faculty should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research (click here to view Proposal Summary details).
September – December 2016
The Ashton Group welcomes Nikolai Fedorchak (Lab Manager/Research Specialist), Nisha Iyer (Postdoctoral Research Associate, from Prof. Sakiyama-Elbert lab at Washington University in St. Louis), and Andrew Baldys, Frank Seipel, Alexandra Doersch, and Stephanie Cuskey as new Undergraduate Research Assistants.
Randolph Ashton is awarded a “Creative Community Innovation Grant” from UW Madison’s Division of Diversity, Equity & Educational Achievement to help further advance the Biomedical Engineering Department’s Diversity Outreach Program.
Congratulations to Gavin Knight and Carlos Marti-Figueroa for successful research talks at the Biomedical Engineering Society’s 2016 Annual Meeting.
Congratulations to Brady Lundin for a successful poster presentation at the Biomedical Engineering Society’s 2016 Annual Meeting.
Brady Lundin & Akshitha Sreeram begin their research projects as 2016 Hilldale Undergraduate Research Scholars!