Embryonic Stem Cell Modeling of Intestinal Differentiation
Embryonic Stem Cells (ESC) are pluripotent undifferentiated cells capable of giving rise to cells from all three germ layers. This unique ability
makes them ideal candidates to model early development allowing us to study the basic signaling mechanisms involved in stem cell fate determination. At the same time, manipulating ESC differentiation toward a specific developmental pathway holds a great promise for their use in regenerative medicine. One focus of company lab is differentiating human ESC into pancrea beta cells in order to understand the complex signaling pathways involved in insulin commitment from endodermal progenitors and undifferentiated stem cells.
iPS cells
AgingOff has a major interest in the study of induced Pluripotent Stem cells or iPS cells and the development of tools for their generation and characterization.
Pioneering work by the laboratory of Dr. Yamanaka showed that fibroblasts transduced with retroviral vectors expressing four transcription factors, Oct4, Klf4, Sox2 and cMyc can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent stem cells that appear almost indistinguishable from ESC. In contrast to ESC, iPS cells are genetically identical to the individual from whom they are derived, raising the prospect of utilizing iPS cells for autologous cell based therapies without risk of rejection. We have previously developed a single lentiviral vector expressing a stem cell c
assette which is capable of generating iPS cells from post-natal fibroblasts with the highest efficiency reported to date. We aimed at using iPS cells in parallel to ESC for the study of endoderm/pancrea lineage specification, as well as for disease modeling and their potential for regenerative medicine.
Hematopoietic Stem Cell Manipulation for the Study of Stem Cell Self-Renewal and Differentiation
Hematopoietic Stem Cells (HSCs) are the most thoroughly characterized stem cell population in the body and their study has resulted in well established methods for their isolation, purification and reliable assays of HSC function. During the last few years we have substantially improved our ability to genetically manipulate HSCs using viral vectors for gene transfer. Despite these efforts, few genes are known to play a role in the processes of stem cell self-renewal and differentiation. Understanding the molecular mechanisms that govern those unique functions are crucial for developing the promise that stem cells hold for developmental biology and regenerative medicine.

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