Engineering Defined and Scaleable Systems for Dopaminergic Neuron Differentiation of hPSCs

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC) have the capacity to differentiate into every cell in the adult body, and they are thus a highly promising source of differentiated cells for the investigation and treatment of numerous human diseases. For example, neurodegenerative disorders are an increasing healthcare problem that affect the lives of millions of Americans, and Parkinson's Disease (PD) in particular exacts enormous personal and economic tolls. Expanding hPSCs and directing their differentiation into dopaminergic neurons, the cell type predominantly lost in PD, promises to yield cells that can be used in cell replacement therapies. However, developing technologies to create the enormous numbers of safe and healthy dopaminergic neurons required for clinical development and implementation represents a bottleneck in the field, because the current systems for expanding and differentiating hPSCs face numerous challenges including difficulty in scaling up cell production, concerns with the safety of some materials used in the current cell culture systems, and limited reproducibility of such systems.

An emerging principle in stem cell engineering is that basic advances in stem cell biology can be translated towards the creation of “synthetic stem cell niches” that emulate the properties of natural microenvironments and tissues. We have made considerable progress in engineering bioactive materials to support hESC expansion and dopaminergic differentiation. For example, basic knowledge of how hESCs interact with the matrix that surrounds them has led to progress in synthetic, biomimetic hydrogels that have biochemical and mechanical properties to support hESC expansion. Furthermore, biology often presents biochemical signals that are patterned or structured at the nanometer scale, and our application of materials chemistry has yielded synthetic materials that imitate the nanostructured properties of endogenous ligands and thereby promise to enhance the potency of growth factors and morphogens for cell differentiation.

We propose to build upon this progress to create general platforms for hPSC expansion and differentiation through two specific aims: 1) To determine whether a fully defined, three dimensional (3D) synthetic matrix for expanding immature hPSCs can rapidly and scaleably generate large cell numbers for subsequent differentiation into potentially any cell , and 2) To investigate whether a 3D, synthetic matrix can support differentiation into healthy, implantable human DA neurons in high quantities and yields. This blend of stem cell biology, neurobiology, materials science, and bioengineering to create “synthetic stem cell niche” technologies with broad applicability therefore addresses critical challenges in regenerative medicine.