Human Stem Cell Use: Embryonic Stem Cell
Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Chondroprogenitor Cells to Repair Osteochondral Defects
Surgical approaches to the treatment of focal cartilage defects can be classified into repair, replacement, and regeneration therapies. Marrow stimulation procedures such as microfracture result in a repair tissue that is predominantly fibrocartilaginous in nature, which is mechanically less durable than articular cartilage and survives on average 7 years before requiring another procedure. Osteochondral grafting […]
A hNSC Development Candidate for Huntington’s Disease
Huntington’s disease (HD) is a devastating degenerative brain disease with at least a 1 in 10,000 prevalence that inevitably leads to death. These numbers do not fully reflect the large societal and familial cost of HD, which requires extensive care-giving. HD has no effective treatment or cure and symptoms unstoppably progress for 15-20 years, with […]
Human Stem-Cell Based Development of a Potent Alzheimer’s Drug Candidate
Over 6 million people in the US suffer from Alzheimer’s disease (AD). There are no drugs that prevent the death of nerve cells in AD, nor has any drug been identified that can stimulate nerve cell replacement in aged human brain. Importantly, even if nerve cells could be replaced, the toxic environment of the AD […]
Clinical Development of a Cell Therapy for Diabetes
We are developing a stem cell-derived replacement cell therapy for insulin-requiring diabetes. Through a process known as directed differentiation, embryonic stem cells are turned into pancreatic cells in the laboratory. The pancreatic cells are loaded into a delivery device, which is essentially a small envelope made with a semi-permeable membrane, not unlike a flat tea […]
Alpha Stem Cell Clinic for the Development of Regenerative Therapies
The proposed alpha clinic will bring together an outstanding team of physician-scientists with substantial clinical trials experience including stem cell and other cellular treatments of blood diseases and others. This team will also draw on our unique regional competitive advantages derived from our history of extensive collaboration with investigators at many nearby first-class research institutions […]
Embryonic stem cell-based generation of rat models for assessing human cellular therapies
Heart failure, diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases are among the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. These diseases are characterized by the loss of specific cell types and can be treated and potentially cured with stem cell-based therapies. Before human stem cells can be used in clinical trials, however, their safety and efficacy need to […]
Technologies to improve in vivo function of transplanted stem cells
Stem cell-based therapy is recognized as a promising therapeutic approach for treating various diseases that are currently intractable. One strategy in regenerative medicine is to transplant stem cells or their differentiated derivatives to regenerate the damaged tissues or halt tissue degeneration. Human embryonic stem cells and human induced pluripotent stem cells having the potential to […]
Development of 3D Bioprinting Techniques using Human Embryonic Stem Cells Derived Cardiomyocytes for Cardiac Tissue Engineering
Heart, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases are responsible for ~17 million deaths per year globally and this number is predicted to reach 23.3 million by 2030. Cardiovascular diseases impose a staggering annual cost of $300 billion on the U.S. health care system. Heart transplantation is the ultimate solution to end-stage heart failure. However, a major […]
Optimizing the differentiation and expansion of microglial progenitors from human pluripotent stem cells for the study and treatment of neurological disease.
Microglia are a type of immune cell within the brain that profoundly influence the development and progression of many neurological disorders. Microglia also inherently migrate toward areas of brain injury, making them excellent candidates for use in cell transplantation therapies. Despite the widely accepted importance of microglia in neurological disease, methods to produce microglia from […]
Development of a scalable, practical, and transferable GMP-compliant suspension culture-based differentiation process for cardiomyocyte production from human embryonic stem cells.
As ongoing CIRM-funded development of regenerative medicine (RM) progresses, the demand for increasing numbers of pluripotent stem cells and their differentiated derivatives has also increased. We have established a scalable suspension culture system for the production of large quantities of hESC for banking and to seed production of a number of regenerative medicine cell types, […]