Dr. Malique Jones Makes Muscle Cells in a Petri Dish at Recent NIH Research Event

Dr. Malique Jones presented a research poster titled “Generation of Human iPSC-derived Skeletal Myotubes to Evaluate DOK7 and COLQ Targeted Therapeutics” at the National Institutes of Health Research Festival in September.

Ouf of the more than 400 projects displayed in the three-day event, Dr. Jones' work was one of just a handful highlighted in an NIH publication about the organization's intramural research.

Dr. Jones, who studied in the lab of Dr. Nathan Tykocki, is leveraging her experience in the field of muscle biology to develop a sort of “muscle-in-a-dish” model that could help researchers test treatments for a particular set of rare neuromuscular disorders.

Dr. Jones is a postdoctoral fellow at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and is working with Catherine Chen in the Therapeutic Development Branch of the Division of Preclinical Innovation. The research team is nurturing induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which can develop into any other kind of cell found in the body, in a manner that coaxes them to become long cells found in our muscles called myotubes.

“This effort is part of the NCATS Platform Vector Gene Therapy program and establishment of an efficient two-dimensional skeletal myotube model that will provide an excellent resource for advancing preclinical testing and gene therapy development for treatment of rare diseases,” Dr. Jones said..