Dr. John Engelhardt is the director at the University of Iowa Center for Gene Therapy of Cystic Fibrosis, as well as the head of the department of anatomy and cell biology.[1] He is known as the creator of the first cloned ferret, and for his work in finding a cure for cystic fibrosis.[2]
Engelhardt is most widely known for his creation of new animal models for the study of cystic fibrosis. In the 1990s he developed the human tracheal xenograft models that allowed study of humanized airways on denuded rat tracheal scaffolds. However, he soon found that there were major limitation of mouse models to study CF. He later found that the ferret represents a much better model for lung disease, and in 2006 his laboratory became the first in the world to clone ferrets.[4]
Engelhardt's research has been geared towards finding gene therapies for cystic fibrosis. Specifically, he focuses on:[5]
the study of lung molecular and cellular biology as it relates to the pathogenesis and treatment of cystic fibrosis lung disease and associated diabetes
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