Publications by authors named "Niall Treacy"
Article Synopsis
- Recent advances in converting somatic cells into induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs) have led to the development of kidney organoids for studying kidney development and disease.
- Significant progress has been made by applying renal developmental signaling pathways and using hydrogel scaffolds like self-assembling peptide hydrogels (SAPHs) and gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) for growing these organoids.
- This work outlines methods to generate human iPSC-derived kidney organoids, their maturation in hydrogels, and protocols for characterizing these organoids through immunofluorescence imaging.
Article Synopsis
- TGFβ1 regulates kidney cell fate and fibrosis progression.
- SMAD3 and EZH2 co-occupy specific genomic regions in kidney stem cells and their derivatives.
- Inhibiting EZH2 disrupts SMAD3 activity and prevents myofibroblast activation, highlighting a key mechanism in kidney fibrosis.
Article Synopsis
- Human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived kidney organoids show promise for disease modeling and personalized medicine, but improvements in their formation methods are needed.* -
- Researchers matured these organoids in synthetic self-assembling peptide hydrogels (SAPHs) with varying stiffness, achieving structures similar to those grown in traditional animal-derived matrices like Matrigel.* -
- Analysis revealed that organoids developed in higher stiffness SAPHs had more mature podocyte gene expressions and fewer off-target cell types, highlighting the benefits of using synthetic hydrogels for kidney organoid maturation.*
Cancer is predominantly a disease of older patients, with over half of those aged over 65 years of age being diagnosed with cancer at some stage. Despite comprising a significant proportion of the patients that we see in clinical practice, there is a lack of representation of older patients in cancer clinical trials. This is mainly due to restrictive trial inclusion criteria that prevent older patients from participating.
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