14/05/10 20:56:26.83
>>93
This story, the world’s first autologous tissue engineered trachea in a human, was featured on an episode of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy.
Additionally, our laboratory is working on projects within the field of Orthopedic tissue engineering,
looking at ways to improve clinical treatments for the regeneration and repair of injuries to bone, articular cartilage, and the anterior cruciate ligament.
While various adult stem cells have been reported to exist in different tissues, our recent work has focused on pluripotent adult stem cells.
Debate continues as to whether Oct4-expressing stem cells naturally exist in the adult body, with a majority of the scientific community believing that Oct4+ cells only exist during embryonic development.
Recently, our group has discovered isolation methods for spheres of pluripotent adult stem cells from adult tissues derived from all tissue germ layers.
However, it is important to note that the cells described above were propagated as non-adherent spheres, which are not known to exist in vivo.
The in vitro behavior of the cells contained in these spheres is likely to be very different from cells that reside in vivo.
Our research group has been investigating how these stem cells are harbored in the adult body, and how they can exert their potential.
We are focusing on gene fluctuations caused by external stimuli, such as environmental changes.
We believe that our studies suggest a novel aspect of mammalian cells; one that cannot be explained only with knowledge from developmental studies.