Year 4

The central mission of our Berkeley CIRM Shared Stem Cell Facility (SSCF) is to provide our East Bay users with knowledge, expertise, training, and equipment to advance scientific knowledge of human embryonic, induced pluripotent, and adult stem cells. We have reached a steady state usage of ~90 students and postdoctoral fellows from the laboratories of 21 PIs at the SSCF, located in Stanley Hall located on the North east end of campus. In addition, cell sorting instrumentation remains in the campus flow facility. Based on the interests of the users, we have continued in Year 4 to provide informational seminars, conduct new instrument demonstrations, offer bulk discounted rates on expensive stem cell medias, and find creative ways to obtain additional instrumentation that will be useful to users. For instance, this year we added considerable automated equipment by incorporating a High-Throughput Screening Facility (HTSF) into our management and administrative structure. This facility includes cell seeding equipment within a BSL-2 cell culture hood, two automated liquid handlers with complementary capabilities, a multi-label plate reader, and automated imager (similar to the SSCF ImageXpress Micro) with a robotic servicing arm for screening of multi-well plates. Most automation equipment was retained at its originally location in Li Ka Shing, in the CIRM Center of Excellence facility, and some CIRM-funded faculty are currently are using the facility to screen for protein partners in pathways that are unique to stem cell biology. In Stanley Hall, the SSCF recently added a new room, B203 Stanley, for a state-of-the-art instrument that helps to detect levels of multiple proteins or growth factors simultaneously from a small sample of tissue or serum. In addition, the HTSF automated imaging equipment and accompanying computer server was moved to B203 Stanley so the facility could have direct management over training and use. These additions this year will further enhance the offerings to stem cell researchers to widen the breadth of the instrumentation that we could offer to researchers, who are grateful that we have these instruments in our facility because of the shared aspect of maintenance and training.
The previously highlighted PIs (detailed in Years 2 and 3) continue to have success using SSCF instrumentation and we would like to highlight publications by researchers who have thus made significant advancements to their research.

Publications:
Downing T., J. Soto, C. Morez, T. Houssin, A. Fritz, F. Yuan, J. Chu, S. Patel, D.V. Schaffer, S. Li, (2013), “Biophysical regulation of epigenetic state and cell reprogramming”. Nature Materials, 12:1154-62 (PMID: 24141451).
Cousin, W., M. Ho, R. Desai, A. Tham, R. Chen, S. Kung, C. Elab, I. Conboy, (2013) “Regenerative Capacity of Old Muscle Stem Cells Declines without Significant Accumulation of DNA Damage” Public Library of Science (PLoS), 8:e63528 (PMID: 23704914).
Yousef, H., M.J. Conboy, J. Li, M. Zeiderman, T. Vazin, C. Schlesinger, D.V. Schaffer, and I.M. Conboy (2013) “hESC-Secreted Proteins can be Enriched for Multiple Regenerative Therapies by Heparin-Binding.” Aging, 5:357-372 (PMID 23793469).
Elabd, C., W. Cousin, R. Chen, M. Chooljian, J. Pham, I. Conboy, M. Conboy (2013) “DNA methyltransferase-3-dependent nonrandom template segregation in differentiating embryonic stem cells.” The Journal of Cell Biology, 203:73-85 (PMID: 24127215).
A. Pathak and S. Kumar (2013). “Transforming potential and matrix stiffness co-regulate confinement sensitivity of tumor cell migration.” Integrative Biology 5: 1067-1075 (PMID: 23832051).
Ma, Z., S. Koo, M. Finnegan, P. Loskill, N. Huebsch, N. Marks, B. Conklin, C. Grigoropoulos, K. Healy K. (2013) “Three-dimensional filamentous human diseased cardiac tissue model”, Biomaterials. (5):1367-1377 (PMID: 24268663).
Halkias, J., H. Melichar, K. Taylor, J. Ross, B. Yen, S. Cooper, A. Winoto, and E. Robey (2013) “Opposing chemokine gradients control human thymocyte migration in situ” The Journal of Clinical Investigation, (5):2131-42 (PMID: 23585474).
Bugaj, L.J., A.T. Choksi, C.K. Mesuda, R.S. Kane, and D.V. Schaffer (2013) “A Modular Optogenetic Platform for Inducible Protein Clustering and Signaling Activation in Mammalian Cells.” Nature Methods, 10:249-252 (PMID 23377377).
Conway, A., T. Vazin, D.P. Spelke, N.A. Rode, K.E. Healy, R.S. Kane, and D.V. Schaffer (2013) “Multivalent Ligands to Control Stem Cell Behaviour in Vitro and in Vivo.” Nature Nanotechnology, 8:831-838 (PMID 24141540).
Keung, A.J., M. Dong, D.V. Schaffer (co-corresponding author), and S. Kumar (2013) “Pan-neuronal Maturation But Not Neuronal Subtype Differentiation of Adult Neural Stem Cells is Mechanosensitive.” Scientific Reports, 3:1817 (PMID 23660869).
Lei, Y. and D.V. Schaffer “A Fully Defined and Scalable 3D Culture System for Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Expansion and Differentiation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (in press).