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October 26, 2015

Intracoronary Delivery of Human Mesenchymal/Stromal Stem Cells

Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells have unique properties favorable to their use in clinical practice and have been studied for cardiac repair. However, these cells are larger than coronary microvessels and there is controversy about the risk of embolization and microinfarctions, which could jeopardize the safety and efficacy of intracoronary route for their delivery. The index of microcirculatory resistance (IMR) is an invasive method for quantitatively assessing the coronary microcirculation status. In a recent publication in PlosOne, BERG-iBB researchers in collaboration with colleagues from the Department of Cardiology at Hospital de Santa Marta and from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at University of Lisbon have examined heart microcirculation in a swine model after intracoronary injection of mesenchymal stem/stromal cells with the index of microcirculatory resistance. Overall, the study provides definitive evidence of microcirculatory disruption upon intracoronary administration of mesenchymal stem/stromal cells, in a large animal model closely resembling human cardiac physiology, function and anatomy.

July 30, 2015

Production of Platelets and Their Progenitors From Umbilical Cord Blood

Platelet transfusion can be a life-saving procedure in different medical settings, but shelf-life of this plod product is only 5 days. The efficient ex vivobiomanufacturing of platelets would make it possible toovercome the shortages of donated platelets. The optimized protocol described by BERG researchers in a recent paper published in the journal Cythotherapy allows the efficient production of platelets and their progenitors from blood stem/progenitor cells by mimicking the bone marrow niche through a co-culture system with human mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC), in combination with different biological factors to prompt differentiation toward functional platelets.

July 6, 2015

Control of Aggregation Directs Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Towards Neural Commitment

In a recent publication in Biotechnology Journal researchers from the Stem Cell Bioengineering and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory (SCBL) describe a novel methodology capable of providing patient-specific neural cells under defined conditions using vitronectin and dual SMAD inhibition. The authors show how pluripotent stem cells can be used to generate patient-specific neural cells that could be used to gain a better understanding of disease mechanisms. This ability to recapitulate the development of the human nervous system in vitro could provide important insights on the mechanisms involved in the maturation of specific neural cell types, making this approach transversal to other related areas in neurodevelopmental research.

June 11, 2015

Seminar on Bioengineered Organs by Professor Pedro Baptista

Professor Pedro Baptista, a specialist in the area of of Regenerative Medicine will be giving a talk entitled "How to make a liver and other organs for Dummies" Friday the 19th June, at 11h00m, in Room QA1.2, IST (Alameda). Pedro Baptista is currently a Group Leader at the Aragon Health Sciences Institute (IACS) in Zaragoza, Spain and the founder of the Organ Bioengineering and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory at the Aragon Biomedical Research Institute, Zaragoza, Spain. The focus of his work is on intestinal organs bioengineering and cellular therapies directed to liver, pancreas and kidney regeneration. He will be hosted by Prof. Cláudia Lobato Silva from SCBL and BERG-iBB.

June 11, 2015

Seminar on "Stem Cell Niches" by Professor Graça Almeida-Porada

Professor Graca Almeida-Porada, a renowed specialist in the area of Regenerative Medicine will be giving a talk entitled "Cell Therapies: Manipulating Stem Cell Niches" next Thursday the 18th June, at 11h00m, in Room 1.38, IST (Tagus Park). Prof. Almeida-Porada is currently affiliated with the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. She will be hosted by Prof. Cláudia Lobato Silva from SCBL and BERG-iBB with whom she has been collaborating over the past years.

June 6, 2015

Control of Aggregation 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 a recent publication in Biotechnology Journal, researchers from the Stem Cell Bioengineering and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory (SCBL) led by Margarida Diogo describe the development of an integrated culture platform for expansion and neural commitment of hPSCs into neural precursors using 3D suspension conditions and chemically-defined culture media. The results obtained in the study constitute an important contribution to the definition of a robust method for production of hPSC-derived neural precursors that minimizes processing steps and has high potential for scale-up.

May 24, 2015

Joaquim Cabral Receives "IST Distinguished Professor" Award

The Director of iBB and principal investigator of SCBL, Professor Joaquim Cabral, received the "IST Distinguished Professor" award from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) for his exceptional contributions to the advanced training and scientific leadership of IST in the areas of Bioengineering, Stem Cell Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. The award was presented on Friday the 22 nd May during the celebration of “Dia do Técnico” by the President of IST, Professor Arlindo Oliveira.

May 5, 2015

Seminar on Human Hematopoietic Stem Cells by Dr Fernando Anjos-Afonso

Dr. Fernando Anjos-Afonso of the European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute at Cardiff School of Biosciences, will be giving a talk entitled "Notching up Human Hematopoietic Stem Cells to control their cell fate decisions and expansion" Friday the 8th May, at 11h00m, in Room 1.38, IST (TagusPark). Dr. Anjos-Afonso was awarded the Jane Hodge Research Fellowship at the European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute in 2015, to investigate different cell-to-cell communication signalling pathways that control human haematopoietic stem cell activity and to determine how these pathways are exploited or avoided by certain leukaemias.