“Making mature adult cells from stem cells is a long and expensive process. We hope our method can make this more efficient, and ultimately decrease the cost of human therapies.” – Dr. Richard Carpenedo, research associate at The Ottawa Hospital.Researchers from Dr. William Stanford’s lab have developed a more efficient way to grow all kinds of cells from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).
IPSCs are human adult skin or blood cells reprogrammed to an embryonic-like state. With the right chemical triggers, they can become any cell in the body. However, making cells from human iPSCs can take up to 50 days.
The team created a method that made the very first step of this process more efficient, potentially reducing the cost and number of cells needed. Most iPSC methods can only be used to make certain kinds of cells, but this generic method can be adapted to make many cell types.
The protocol has already been used in Dr. Michael Rudnicki and Dr. Duncan Stewart’s labs to make muscle and vascular cells from iPSCs. The method only took these labs a short time to implement, so the team is confident it can easily be adopted by labs around the world.
“Making mature adult cells from stem cells is a long and expensive process. We hope our method can make this more efficient, and ultimately decrease the cost of human therapies.” said Dr. Richard Carpenedo, research associate at The Ottawa Hospital.
Authors: Richard L. Carpenedo, Sarah Y. Kwon, R. Matthew Tanner, Julien Yockell-Lelièvre, Chandarong Choey, Carole Doré, Mirabelle Ho, Duncan J. Stewart, Theodore J. Perkins, William L. Stanford
Source: Stem Cell Reports
Core resources: Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Facility, High Content Imaging Core, Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting Facility, StemCore Laboratories
Funding: Canadian Institute of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canadian Foundation for Innovation, Canada Research Chair in Integrative Stem Cell Biology. Research at The Ottawa Hospital is possible because of generous donations to the hospital.
The Ottawa Hospital: Inspired by research. Driven by compassion
The Ottawa Hospital is one of Canada’s largest learning and research hospitals with over 1,100 beds, approximately 12,000 staff and an annual budget of over $1.2 billion. Our focus on research and learning helps us develop new and innovative ways to treat patients and improve care. As a multi-campus hospital, affiliated with the University of Ottawa, we deliver specialized care to the Eastern Ontario region, but our techniques and research discoveries are adopted around the world. We engage the community at all levels to support our vision for better patient care. See www.ohri.ca for more information about research at The Ottawa Hospital.
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