headshot of Donald Taylor

Donald Taylor

Associate Professor
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Commercial Translation in the Health Sciences
dpt9@pitt.edu
(412) 624-5100
(412) 624-5310
Bioengineering Department

overview

My research interests include chronic wound healing. We’re investigating the unique properties of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) embedded within a two part polyethylene glycol and dihydroxyphenyl-L-alanine polymer infused with covalently tethered matrikines that will support defined MSC survival and engraftment efficiency before the therapeutic MSCs expire. This biocompatible and biodegradable wound gel thus serves as a cell-based therapy and delivery device enabling wound healing where other interventions fail to stem infection risk, initiate angiogenesis, and/or recruit stromal support cells to fully resolve the wound healing process. I believe that our proposed cell-based polymeric wound gel with a functional biomaterial-based niche for cell delivery and antimicrobial properties will revolutionize therapeutic approaches, save lives, improve quality of life and reduce high costs associated with treating chronic and traumatic wounds. I am also focused on a hybrid academic & translational CEO career whereby I will leverage my global life sciences commercial experience with my research training in order to: 1) advance the most promising university technologies to commercialization, 2) establish academic/industry partnerships, and 3) help train the next generation of world-class translational development scientific entrepreneurs.

about

BS, Information and Decision Systems, Carnegie Mellon University, 1990 - 1998

MS Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, 2003 - 2006

MBA Business Administration, University of Pittsburgh, 2003 - 2006

PhD Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, 2010 - 2013

Yates, C.C., Nuschke, A., Rodrigues, M., Whaley, D., Dechant, J.J., Taylor, D.P., & Wells, A. (2017). Improved Transplanted Stem Cell Survival in a Polymer Gel Supplemented With Tenascin C Accelerates Healing and Reduces Scarring of Murine Skin Wounds. Cell Transplant, 26(1), 103-113.SAGE Publications. doi: 10.3727/096368916X692249.

Clark, A.M., Wheeler, S.E., Taylor, D.P., Young, C.L., Pillai, V.C., Stolz, D.B., Venkataramanan, R., Lauffenburger, D.A., Griffith, L.G., & Wells, A. (2015). Modeling breast cancer dormancy and re-emergence. CANCER RESEARCH, 75(9_Supplement), p1-07-01-p1-07-01.American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). doi: 10.1158/1538-7445.SABCS14-P1-07-01.

Clark, A.M., Wheeler, S.E., Taylor, D.P., Pillai, V.C., Young, C.L., Prantil-Baun, R., Nguyen, T., Stolz, D.B., Borenstein, J.T., Lauffenburger, D.A., Venkataramanan, R., Griffith, L.G., & Wells, A. (2014). A microphysiological system model of therapy for liver micrometastases. Exp Biol Med (Maywood), 239(9), 1170-1179.Frontiers. doi: 10.1177/1535370214532596.

Taylor, D.P., Clark, A., Wheeler, S., & Wells, A. (2014). Hepatic nonparenchymal cells drive metastatic breast cancer outgrowth and partial epithelial to mesenchymal transition. Breast Cancer Res Treat, 144(3), 551-560.Springer Nature. doi: 10.1007/s10549-014-2875-0.

Wheeler, S.E., Clark, A.M., Taylor, D.P., Young, C.L., Pillai, V.C., Stolz, D.B., Venkataramanan, R., Lauffenburger, D., Griffith, L., & Wells, A. (2014). Spontaneous dormancy of metastatic breast cancer cells in an all human liver microphysiologic system. Br J Cancer, 111(12), 2342-2350.Springer Nature. doi: 10.1038/bjc.2014.533.

Taylor, D.P., & Wells, A. (2013). Liver nonparenchymal cells drive metastatic breast cancer survival but fail to initiate mesenchymal to epithelial reversion. CANCER RESEARCH, 73(3_Supplement), c93.American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). doi: 10.1158/1538-7445.TIM2013-C93.

Taylor, D.P., Wells, J.Z., Savol, A., Chennubhotla, C., & Wells, A. (2013). Modeling boundary conditions for balanced proliferation in metastatic latency. Clin Cancer Res, 19(5), 1063-1070.American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-12-3180.

Wells, A., Griffith, L., Wells, J.Z., & Taylor, D.P. (2013). The dormancy dilemma: quiescence versus balanced proliferation. Cancer Res, 73(13), 3811-3816.American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-13-0356.

Wheeler, S.E., Borenstein, J.T., Clark, A.M., Ebrahimkhani, M.R., Fox, I.J., Griffith, L., Inman, W., Lauffenburger, D., Nguyen, T., Pillai, V.C., Prantil-Baun, R., Stolz, D.B., Taylor, D., Ulrich, T., Venkataramanan, R., Wells, A., & Young, C. (2013). All-human microphysical model of metastasis therapy. Stem Cell Res Ther, 4 Suppl 1(Suppl 1), S11.Springer Nature. doi: 10.1186/scrt372.

Taylor, D.P., & Wells, A. (2012). Breast cancer in the metastatic niche: A role for stress-induced dormancy. CANCER RESEARCH, 72(8_Supplement), 5240.American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). doi: 10.1158/1538-7445.AM2012-5240.

Martin, D.C., Taylor, D.P., & Kearns, L. (1997). An information infrastructure for long-term care. Top Health Inf Manage, 18(1), 10-22.