Karen Christman

Christman studied biomedical engineering at Northwestern University. She moved to California in 2000, where she earned her graduate degrees.^{[citation needed]} Christman was a doctoral researcher at the University of California, San Francisco (USCF), where she developed in situ approaches for myocardial tissue engineering.^[3] She has said that she started working in bioengineering to find a way to help patients.^[4]

After her PhD, she moved to the University of California, Los Angeles for postdoctoral research, working with Heather Maynard on polymer chemistry to develop new strategies for site-specific patterning of proteins.^[5] In 2007, Christman joined the Department of Bioengineering at UC San Diego. She develops materials for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Her research considers naturally occurring and synthetically derived hydrogels to repair and regenerate tissue.^[4] She looks to use these hydrogels for non-invasive therapeutic interventions.^[4] In particular, Christman has studied myocardial infarction, which is a leading cause of death worldwide and from which many people do not recover full function.^[4]

In 2017, Christman was one of the most highly funded researchers at UC San Diego, receiving a large grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to study peripheral artery disease.^[6] She is the founder of Ventrix, Inc,^[7][8] which looks to create a new class of biotherapeutics that help the extracellular matrix guide the body to generate healthy tissue.^[9]

Christman serves as editor-in-chief of NPG Regenerative Medicine.^[10]

• NIH Director's New Innovator and Transformative Research Awards^[11]
• Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Society Young Investigator Award^[12]
• Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Society Senior Scientist Award^[12]
• Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering^[13]
• Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors^[14]

Her publications^[1][2] include:

• Karen L Christman; Andrew J Vardanian; Qizhi Fang; Richard E Sievers; Hubert H Fok; Randall J Lee (1 August 2004). "Injectable fibrin scaffold improves cell transplant survival, reduces infarct expansion, and induces neovasculature formation in ischemic myocardium". Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 44 (3): 654–660. doi:10.1016/J.JACC.2004.04.040. ISSN 0735-1097. PMID 15358036. Wikidata Q45206400.
• Jennifer M Singelyn; Jessica A DeQuach; Sonya B Seif-Naraghi; Robert B Littlefield; Pamela J Schup-Magoffin; Karen L Christman (15 July 2009). "Naturally derived myocardial matrix as an injectable scaffold for cardiac tissue engineering". Biomaterials. 30 (29): 5409–5416. doi:10.1016/J.BIOMATERIALS.2009.06.045. ISSN 0142-9612. PMC 2728782. PMID 19608268. Wikidata Q41969553.
• Karen L Christman; Hubert H Fok; Richard E Sievers; Qizhi Fang; Randall J Lee (1 March 2004). "Fibrin glue alone and skeletal myoblasts in a fibrin scaffold preserve cardiac function after myocardial infarction". Tissue Engineering. 10 (3–4): 403–409. doi:10.1089/107632704323061762. ISSN 1076-3279. PMID 15165457. Wikidata Q46599109.