Therapeutic/Technology: Exploring stem cell mechanisms
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Because the regenerative capacity of adult heart is limited, any substantial cell loss as a result of a heart attack is mostly irreversible and may lead to progressive heart failure. Human pluripotent stem cells can be differentiated to heart cells, but their properties when transplanted into an injured heart remain unresolved. We propose to perform […]
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Many fetuses with congenital blood stem cell disorders such as sickle cell disease or thalassemia are prenatally diagnosed early enough in pregnancy to be treated with stem cell transplantation. The main benefit to treating these diseases before birth is that the immature fetal immune system may accept transplanted cells without needing to use immunosuppressant drugs […]
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Despite therapeutic advances, cardiovascular disease remains a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in California. Regenerative therapies that restore normal function after a heart attack would have an enormous societal and financial impact. Although very promising, regenerative cardiac cell therapy faces a number of challenges and technological hurdles. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) allow […]
Enhancing hair cell regeneration in mouse and human inner ear
Hearing loss (HL) is a permanent sensory disorder affecting over 278 million people worldwide. In the US and California, 20% of individuals suffer from this sensory deficit. Those affected range from newborns (2 per 1000), to children aged 3-17 (5 per 1000), to adults including the elderly (~33% in aged 65-74 and ~50% >85 years […]
Human endothelial reprogramming for hematopoietic stem cell therapy.
The current roadblocks to hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) therapies include the rarity of matched donors for bone marrow transplant, engraftment failures, common shortages of donated blood, and the inability to expand HSCs ex vivo in large numbers. These major obstacles would cease to exist if an extensive, bankable, inexhaustible, and patient-matched supply of blood were […]
Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiovascular Progenitor Cells for Cardiac Cell Therapy.
Despite therapeutic advances, cardiovascular disease remains a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in California. Regenerative therapies that restore normal function after a heart attack would have an enormous societal and financial impact. Although very promising, regenerative cardiac cell therapy faces a number of challenges and technological hurdles. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) allow […]
Regulation of Epidermal Self-Renewal and Differentiation by Histone and DNA Demethylases.
Tissue specific stem and progenitor cells exist to replenish the tissue it resides during normal homeostasis or during regeneration from a wound. Disease and aging leads to a depletion of these stem and progenitor cells, which can impede the ability of the body to regenerate itself. Thus, an understanding of the mechanisms of how tissue […]
Epigenetic regulation of human cardiac differentiation
Each cell type in our body has its own identity. This identity allows a heart cell to contract repetitively, and a brain cell to conduct nerve impulses. Each cell type gains its identity by turning on or off thousands of genes that together give the cell its identity. Understanding how these sets of genes are […]
Mechanism and Utility of Direct Neuronal Conversion with a MicroRNA-Chromatin Switch
Many human diseases and injuries that affect the brain and nervous system could potentially be treated by either introducing healthy neurons or persuading the cells that normally provide supporting functions to become functioning neurons. A number of barriers must be traversed to bring these goals to practical therapies. Recently our laboratory and others have found […]
Asymmetric stem cell division oriented by a local self-renewing signal
When stem cells divide, the two daughter cells have a choice. Commonly, one of the daughter cells becomes a new stem cell while the other one will be more specialized (or differentiated). This property — the ability to generate more stem cells (self-renewal) while making differentiated cells simultaneously — defines a stem cell. Stem cells […]