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HSCI Science Update: September 2009

September 16, 2009

  • Amniotic stem cells fill in the gaps

    An active area of research in stem cell and regenerative medicine is identifying viable cell sources for tissue repair. HSCI Principal Faculty member Dario Fauza, MD, and colleagues recently made an exciting advance in this area. Fauza and fellow researchers discovered that mesenchymal stem cells, isolated from rabbit amniotic fluid, could be grown on specially engineered scaffolds and grafted into kits, baby rabbits, with sternal defects. The researchers observed the grafts and found closure of the sternal defect in all the animals they used in the procedure. These promising results point to the utility of amniotic mesenchymal cells for engineered chest wall reconstruction.

    Steigman, S.A., Ahmed, A., Shanti, R.M., Tuan, R.S., Valim, C., Fauza, D.O. (2009). Sternal repair with bone grafts engineered from amniotic mesenchymal stem cells. J Pediatr Surg.44,1120-6.

  • Pluripotent stem cells from diabetes patients; a trove for diabetes researchers

    Type 1 diabetes is the result of an autoimmune attack in the body that results in the destruction of the insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. The ability to create a useful model of diabetes could inform studies investigating causes of the disease. A paper recently published by HSCI Scientific Co-director Doug Melton, PhD, and colleagues reported the creation of induced pluripotent cells (iPS) cells from diabetes patients. These diabetic iPS (DiPS) cells were derived from skin cells taken from diabetic patients that were then reprogrammed into pluripotency by introducing a mix of the transcription factors OCT4, SOX2, and KLF4. These cells were then differentiated into cells that, like beta cells, produce insulin. These DiPS cells have exciting promise as a model for examining the disease in vitro as well as a potential cell source for cell replacement therapy in the future.

    Maehr, R., Chen, S., Snitow, M., Ludwig, T., Yagasaki, L., Goland, R., Leibel, R.L., Melton, D.A. (2009). Generation of pluripotent stem cells from patients with type 1 diabetes. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. [Epub ahead of print]

  • Building blocks of the human heart

    A number of different cell types are required for the development of the human heart. Understanding the differentiation of these cell types has been difficult due to the lack of appropriate genetic tools. Recently, HSCI Executive Committee member Ken Chien, MD, PhD and colleagues achieved a major breakthrough in the field by identifying a set of progenitor cells, ISL1(+) cells, that give rise to the major cardiac cell lineages - cardiomyocyte, smooth muscle, and endothelial cell lineages - in the human heart. These findings pave the way for creating new human models of heart disease and investigating new approaches to cardiac regenerative medicine.

    Bu, L., Jiang, X., Martin-Puig, S., Caron, L., Zhu, S., Shao, Y., Roberts, D.J., Huang, P.L., Domian, I.J., Chien, K.R. (2009). Human ISL1 heart progenitors generate diverse multipotent cardiovascular cell lineages. Nature 460, 113-7.