Jeremie Oliver Piña, PhD

University of Maryland

Jeremie Oliver Piña, Ph.D., M.S., M.B.A. is a Doctor of Dental Surgery (D.D.S.) Candidate (class of 2026) at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry as well as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). He earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Utah, partnered with the NIH, focused on the single-cell spatial omics of palate development (Published in Nature Communications, Journal of Dental Research, and Tissue Engineering). Jeremie’s ultimate goal is to combine his scientific and clinical training as a future oral and maxillofacial surgeon-engineer with a focus on craniofacial anomalies.

Abstract:
A subset of orofacial cleft anomalies, palatal clefts are among the most common birth defects in humans. Such birth anomalies pose significant physical, mental, psychosocial, and financial burden on patients and their caregivers throughout life. While the pathophysiology of palatal clefts is complex, failure of terminal osteogenic differentiation is a key etiology of interest. It is known that osteogenesis is a key stage of palatogenesis, failure of which results in the submucosal deficiency of a viable bony bridge to properly separate the nasal and oral cavities. Our recent work has shed light on the morphogenetic gradients of expression orchestrating the patterning of palatal bone through. These studies contextualized osteogenic gene expression patterns via multimodal sequencing– both in normal and abnormal (cleft) conditions. Specifically, our work identified a key modulator of Wnt signaling – Dkk2 – as a druggable target to resolve palatal clefts via small molecule inhibitor delivery. The objective of this project is to design and synthesize IIIc3a-conjuaged nanogels and then incorporate them into the 3D-printed PCL-allograft construct to promote osteodifferentiation of primary palate cells in culture and palate bone formation in a murine palate injury model. The hypothesis is that the novel 3D-printed PCL-allograft-IIIc3a-nanogel construct system can effectively promote osteodifferentiation of primary palate cells in vitro and palate bone formation in a murine palate injury model. The tetrad combination strategy of using biomaterials, nanotechnology, small molecule inhibitor and 3D-printing to address clinical challenges in regenerating complex palate bone tissues is highly significant and innovative with a solid premise and intellectual property protection. If successful, this project will present a new paradigm for scientific understanding, bioengineering design, pharmaceutical development, and clinical practice for repair of cleft palate defects.