Benjamin Levi
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Injuries can make the body grow bone where it does not belong, or heal tendons in ways that undo surgical repair. The research examines how immune cells, lymphatic vessels and nerves steer tissue repair after injury in muscles, tendons and joints.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Physiology
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
heterotopic ossification
ectopic bone
lymphatics
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jul 2031
What they work on
- Map lymphatic vessels around skeletal and heterotopic bone after injury in mice, and test whether blocking VEGFR3-driven lymphatic growth worsens heterotopic ossification.
- Test whether boosting VEGFD–VEGFR3 lymphatic growth, together with T-cell RANKL, drives myeloid cells to become osteoclasts that resorb heterotopic bone while sparing normal skeleton.
- Evaluate whether drugs that activate VEGFR3 promote lymphatic growth and resorb existing heterotopic bone without damaging the normal skeleton in mice.
- Map nerve–tendon interactions in children with relapsed clubfoot using single-cell RNA sequencing and histology, and test a TAZ inhibitor after tenotomy in a Piezo2-mutant mouse model.
- Test whether Botox, the PIEZO blocker GsMTx4 or dietary EPA, an omega-3 fatty acid, prevents clubfoot relapse after Achilles tenotomy in the mouse model.
More about the research
It uses mouse models and patient tissue, with the goal of finding ways to treat two conditions that currently have no drug therapies.
Why it matters
Patients who develop heterotopic ossification after hip replacement, burns or trauma suffer chronic pain and stiff joints with no way to reverse the bone. Stimulating lymphatic growth could offer a first drug approach to dissolve it. For children born with clubfoot, FDA-approved drugs or dietary supplements that block nerve force-sensing could reduce relapse after tendon surgery and the repeat operations it requires.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Anne Nichols
University of Rochester, NY·Physiology·Early-career
Build a spatial and time-course atlas of how GLAST-lineage epitenon progenitors and Scx-expressing tenocytes respond to load. The approach combines genetic lineage tracing in mice with integrated spatial and single-cell RNA sequencing.
Xiaolei Liu
Temple University, PA·Physiology
Determine the molecular pathways and targets through which lymphatic growth in the heart improves cardiomyocyte survival after myocardial infarction, building on survival signals such as Reelin released by lymphatic endothelial cells.
Robert Tower
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, TX·Microbiology & Immunology
Identify the transcriptional and metabolic signals that switch on Acod1, the gene whose enzyme makes itaconate, specifically in mature neutrophils at the injury site, including the role of the damage sensor TLR9.
The school
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center: 40 labs on PI Pages, $869M a year on research, 86 research doctorates a year.
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