Kenyon Lyon

Class of 2018

Education: Blended BS and MS in Biomedical Engineering at Cal Poly

 

Biography

Kenyon believes that the most interesting aspect of regenerative medicine is its incredible range of applications. From increasing our understanding of cell biology to the development of novel therapies, the field has a huge potential for treating diseases and improving patients' quality of life. He wants to focus on biomaterials and tissue engineered scaffolds.He's not sure what he wants to do as a career, but he'd like to contribute to the field in a way that helps people in need. 

Kenyon's internship is at Genea Biocells where he works with the MDC1A project group under his manager, Amanda Rickard. MDC1A is the most common type of congenital muscular dystrophy and severely impacts patients' quality of life. An in vitro skeletal muscle model with clinically relevant pathology can be used for early discovery research to find therapeutic interventions for the disease. Kenyon's role in the project is to use Genea's platform to differentiate stem cells from MDC1A affected donors into mature myotubes and characterize disease specific phenotypes at each stage of the differentiation process.