Year 4

Transition to the mouse model for the generation of Tissue-Engineered Small Intestine (TESI) was accomplished in year 1, and in year 2 the efficiency and reproducibility of TESI formation in the mouse was markedly improved. For 2012, the work resulted in 4 invited national lectures, and 10 nationally presented abstracts. The lab also has 1 abstract accepted for presentation in 2013 and three papers in press. In year 4 of this grant, we determined that FGF10 overexpression enhances the formation of tissue-engineered small intestine, and these results were just accepted for publication. We also demonstrated two critical steps toward human therapy: generation of tissue-engineered large and small intestine from human progenitor cells.