Amrita Sahu

Amrita Sahu is a core faculty member of the McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in School of Medicine at University of Pittsburgh. She holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Graduate School of Public Health in University of Pittsburgh.  

The Sahu lab’s motto is “A healthy environment makes you take up healthy characteristics”. To achieve this, Sahu studies the mechanisms that regulate skeletal muscle health across one’s lifespan. Sahu lab is interested in improving health span by enhancing skeletal muscle health in youth, aging, and accelerated aging models. Skeletal muscle is a potent signaling organ and Sahu lab aims to leverage that feature. Sahu’s team investigates the autocrine, paracrine, and endocrine signaling capacity of the skeletal muscle to develop targeted therapeutics for improving muscle health. Sahu and team employ interdisciplinary approaches spanning engineering, clinical sciences, basic sciences, and computational biology to develop novel solutions to accelerate the healing and signaling capacity of skeletal muscle. The goal is to make discoveries translatable from bench-to-clinic.  

Sahu earned her B.Tech. in Biomedical Engineering from Manipal University in India. She obtained her M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University where she developed single cell extracellular matrix scaffolds for efficient cell delivery system. She received her PhD in Environmental and Occupational Health at the University of Pittsburgh where she developed anti-geronic regenerative medicine-based interventions to enhance aged skeletal muscle functional regenerative properties. For this, she earned the Delta Omega Award–Delta Omega is an honorary society for recognizing individuals who are committed to public health work. Sahu’s lab has received funding from the Foundation of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, AstaReal Inc., The Claude Pepper Center, UPMC Rehabilitation Institute, National Institute of Health, and The Pittsburgh Foundation.