Abstract
Tissue engineering technology to build living artificial nervous system tissue offers an exciting future option for the repair of nervous system injuries, particularly for peripheral nerve and spinal cord trauma. To be successful, this approach requires a reliable source of well-characterised therapeutic cells that can be implanted safely to support and direct neuronal regeneration. The aim of this project is to develop safe stable human cell lines using ex vivo gene therapy to engineer induced pluripotent stem cells, underpinning a new generation of replacement tissues that can used in regenerative medicine.
References
1 Georgiou, Melanie; Golding, Jon P.; Loughlin, Alison J.; Kingham, Paul J. and Phillips, James B. (2015). Engineered neural tissue with aligned, differentiated adipose-derived stem cells promotes peripheral nerve regeneration across a critical sized defect in rat sciatic nerve. Biomaterials, 37, 242–251
2 C. O’Rourke, A. G. E. Day, C. Murray-Dunning, L. Thanabalasundaram, J. Cowan, L. Stevanato, N. Grace, G. Cameron, R. A. L. Drake, J. Sinden & J. B. Phillips (2018) An allogeneic ‘off the shelf’ therapeutic strategy for peripheral nerve tissue engineering using clinical grade human neural stem cells. Scientific Reports 8, 2951
3 Jessen K & Mirsky R (2016) The Repair Schwann cell and its function in regenerating nerves. J Physiology 594, 3521-31
4 Tyzack G, Lakatos A, Patani R. ‘Human Stem Cell-Derived Astrocytes: Specification and Relevance for Neurological Disorders’. Current Stem Cell Reports 2016 2:236-247.
5 O’Hare MJ, Bond J, Clarke C, Takeuchi Y, Atherton AJ, Berry C, Moody J, Silver ARJ, Davies DC, Alsop AE, Neville AM, Jat PS. Conditional immortalization of freshly isolated human mammary fibroblasts and endothelial cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2001; 98: 646-651.