Advances in ex vivo expansion of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells for clinical applications.

As caretakers of the hematopoietic system, hematopoietic stem cells assure a lifelong supply of differentiated populations that are responsible for critical bodily functions, including oxygen transport, immunological protection and coagulation. Due to the far-reaching influence of the hematopoietic system, hematological disorders typically have a significant impact on the lives of individuals, even becoming fatal. Hematopoietic cell transplantation was the first effective therapeutic avenue to treat such hematological diseases.

Systems bioengineering approaches for developmental toxicology.

Developmental toxicology is the field of study that examines the effects of chemical and physical agents on developing organisms. By using principles of systems biology and bioengineering, a systems bioengineering approach could be applied to study the complex interactions between developing organisms, the environment, and toxic agents. This approach would result in a holistic understanding of the effects of toxic agents on organisms, by considering the interactions between different biological systems and the impacts of toxicants on those interactions.

A Concise Review on Electrospun Scaffolds for Kidney Tissue Engineering.

Chronic kidney disease is one of the deadliest diseases globally and treatment methods are still insufficient, relying mostly on transplantation and dialysis. Engineering of kidney tissues in vitro from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) could provide a solution to this medical need by restoring the function of damaged kidneys. However, implementation of such approaches is still challenging to achieve due to the complexity of mature kidneys in vivo.

A Dynamic 3D Aggregate-Based System for the Successful Expansion and Neural Induction of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells.

The demand for large cell numbers for cellular therapies and drug screening applications requires the development of scalable platforms capable of generating high-quality populations of tissue-specific cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). Here, we studied the ability of Gibco StemScale PSC Suspension Medium to promote the efficient expansion of hPSC cultures as aggregates grown in suspension. We tested human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) growth in 6-well plates (on orbital shaker platforms) and single-use vertical-wheel bioreactors for a total of three consecutive passages.

Modeling the Human Body on Microfluidic Chips.

Animals often fail to faithfully mimic human diseases and drug toxicities, and most in vitro models are not complex enough to recapitulate human body function and pathophysiology. Organ-on-chip culture technology, however, offers a promising tool for the study of tissue development and homeostasis, which has brought us one step closer to performing human experimentation in vitro. To recapitulate the complex functionality of multiple organs at once, their respective on-chip models can be linked to create a functional human body-on-chip platform.

hiPSC-Based Model of Prenatal Exposure to Cannabinoids: Effect on Neuronal Differentiation.

Phytocannabinoids are psychotropic substances ofcannabis with the ability to bind endocannabinoid (eCB) receptors that regulate synaptic activity in the central nervous system (CNS). Synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) are synthetic analogs of Δ-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ-THC), the psychotropic compound of cannabis, acting as agonists of eCB receptor CB. SC is an easily available and popular alternative to cannabis, and their molecular structure is always changing, increasing the hazard for the general population.

Human Pluripotent Stem Cells: Applications and Challenges for Regenerative Medicine and Disease Modeling.

In recent years, human pluripotent stem (hPS) cells have started to emerge as a potential tool with application in fields such as regenerative medicine, disease modeling, and drug screening. In particular, the ability to differentiate human-induced pluripotent stem (hiPS) cells into different cell types and to mimic structures and functions of a specific target organ, resourcing to organoid technology, has introduced novel model systems for disease recapitulation while offering a powerful tool to provide a faster and reproducible approach in the process of drug discovery. All these technologies are expected to improve the overall quality of life of the humankind.

Strategies for the expansion of human induced pluripotent stem cells as aggregates in single-use Vertical-Wheel™ bioreactors.

Background: Since their inception, human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have held much promise for pharmacological applications and cell-based therapies. However, their potential can only be realised if large numbers of cells can be produced reproducibly on-demand. While bioreactors are ideal systems for this task, due to providing agitation and control of the culture parameters, the common impeller geometries were not designed for the expansion of mammalian cells, potentially leading to sub-optimal results.

Towards Multi-Organoid Systems for Drug Screening Applications.

A low percentage of novel drug candidates succeed and reach the end of the drug discovery pipeline, mainly due to poor initial screening and assessment of the effects of the drug and its metabolites over various tissues in the human body. For that, emerging technologies involving the production of organoids from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) and the use of organ-on-a-chip devices are showing great promise for developing a more reliable, rapid and cost-effective drug discovery process when compared with the current use of animal models. In particular, the possibility of virtually obtaining any type of cell within the human body, in combination with the ability to create patient-specific tissues using human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), broadens the horizons in the fields of drug discovery and personalized medicine.

A scale out approach towards neural induction of human induced pluripotent stem cells for neurodevelopmental toxicity studies.

Stem cell's unique properties confer them a multitude of potential applications in the fields of cellular therapy, disease modelling and drug screening fields. In particular, the ability to differentiate neural progenitors (NP) from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) using chemically-defined conditions provides an opportunity to create a simple and straightforward culture platform for application in these fields. Here, we demonstrated that hiPSCs are capable of undergoing neural commitment inside microwells, forming characteristic neural structures resembling neural rosettes and further give rise to glial and neuronal cells.

Scaling up a chemically-defined aggregate-based suspension culture system for neural commitment of human pluripotent stem cells.

The demand of high cell numbers for applications in cellular therapies and drug screening requires the development of scalable platforms capable to generating highly pure populations of tissue-specific cells from human pluripotent stem cells. In this work, we describe the scaling-up of an aggregate-based culture system for neural induction of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) under chemically-defined conditions. A combination of non-enzymatic dissociation and rotary agitation was successfully used to produce homogeneous populations of hiPSC aggregates with an optimal (140 μm) and narrow distribution of diameters (coefficient of variation of 21.

Spatial and temporal control of cell aggregation efficiently directs human pluripotent stem cells towards neural commitment.

3D suspension culture is generally considered a promising method to achieve efficient expansion and controlled differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). In this work, we focused on developing an integrated culture platform for expansion and neural commitment of hPSCs into neural precursors using 3D suspension conditions and chemically-defined culture media. We evaluated different inoculation methodologies for hPSC expansion as 3D aggregates and characterized the resulting cultures in terms of aggregate size distribution.