The Michigan Medicine-Peking University Health Science Center Joint Institute is pleased to announced research funding awards for 2022.

The five funded projects stem from a variety of disciplines, including fertility, ophthalmology, and cardiovascular medicine, and more than one proposal focuses on aspects of machine learning to advance discovery. Collectively, these awards bring the total number of funded JI projects to date to 74 since the collaboration’s launch in 2010.

“We are excited to welcome these newest projects and research teams into our Joint Institute family,” said Joseph Kolars, MD, MACP, UMMS Senior Associate Dean and co-director of the JI. “Our partnership continues demonstrate the value of collaboration and international cooperation to address collective challenges in health and healthcare.”

Congratulations to the 2022 award recipients.

Single-cell and spatial analyses of male germ cell development to advance understanding of idiopathic infertility in Chinese and American populations

U-M PIs:
Jun Li, PhD, Professor of Human Genetics & Sue Hammoud, PhD, Assistant Professor of Human Genetics

PKUHSC PIs:
Jie Qiao, MD, PhD, Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology & Peng Yuan, PhD, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology

Discover novel therapeutic targets for aortic aneurysm and dissection through data mining and experimental models

U-M PIs:
Jifeng Zhang, PhD, Research Associate Professor of Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Medicine

PKUHSC PIs:
Lemin Zheng, PhD, Institute of Cardiovascular Science & Wei Li, MD, Professor of Vascular Surgery

Gene Editing therapy for Usher Syndrome Type IIA

U-M PIs:
Dongshan Yang, PhD, Research Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Medicine & Yannis Paulus, MD, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology

PKUHSC PIs:
Yang Li, PhD, Associate Professor of Basic Medical Sciences, Stem Cell Research Center & Yun Feng, MD, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology

Physiology-informed machine learning for precision phenotyping of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction

U-M PIs:
Scott Hummel, MD, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Medicine & Daniel Beard, PhD, Professor of Physiology

PKUHSC PIs:
Yida Tang, MD, PhD, Professor and Director of Cardiovascular Medicine

Non-Invasive Preimplantation Genetic Testing for Aneuploidy (ni-PGT-A): Clinical Utility and Concordance with Human Blastocyst Regional Single Cell Sequencing (SCSeq)-PGT-A and Fertility Healthcare Provider Blastocyst Multi-Cell Trophectoderm Biopsy PGT-A (FHP-PGT-A)

U-M PIs:
Gary Smith, PhD, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology

PKUHSC PIs:
Liying Yan, PhD, P Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology & Zhiqiang Yan, PhD, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology