The research group of Arun Sharma, PhD has been working on innovative approaches to tissue regeneration in order to improve the lives of patients with urinary bladder dysfunction. Among their breakthroughs was a medical model for regenerating bladders using stem cells harvested from a donor's own bone marrow, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2013.

More recently, the team has developed a system that may protect against the inflammatory reaction that can negatively impact tissue growth, development and function. Self-assembling peptide amphiphiles (PAs) are biocompatible and biodegradable nanomaterials that have demonstrated utility in a wide range of settings and applications. Using an established urinary bladder augmentation model, the Sharma Group treated a highly pro-inflammatory biologic scaffold used in a wide array of settings with anti-inflammatory peptide amphiphiles (AIF-PAs). When compared with control PAs, the treated scaffold showed regenerative capacity while modulating the innate inflammatory response, resulting in superior bladder function.