Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are a highly promising source of differentiated cells that may be usedin the future for revolutionary treatments of diabetes, Parkinson's and other diseases. hESCs have beensomewhat difficult to study, because conditions that support their growth in culture were farily primitive. Wehave developed a simple and efficient way to culture hESCs, which opens the possibility of alternate andpowerful cell culture methodologies, which may speed the progress of these clinical applications.The ojectives of the application are to develop key new enabling technologies for hESCs. We haveestablished a new and simple defined media system for culturing and differentiating hESCs. Our approachsupported the massive expansion of undifferenitiated cells, the maintenance of hESCs in suspension and theroutine minaturization of hESC culture for high throughtput sceening approaches.
The specific aims are toinvestigate the advantages of maintaining undifferenitated hESCs in suspension, and directing differentiationto endodermal and other lineages in high-density suspension culture. Streamlined protocols will be adaptedto a fully-controlable bioreactor system and optimised.
Other aims are to screen known compounds orlibaries of marine natural products in hESCs to identify novel activities that impact self-renewal,differentiation or apoptosis. In particular, we will screen for compunds that induce differenitation in hESCs byimpacting Activin/nodal, GSKSp or PIS Kinase signaling. Our approaches are highly unique and have thepotential to greatly simplify future cell therapy applications of hESC-derived transplantable cells.
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