Dr. Willy Lensch is Strategic Advisor to the Dean at Harvard Medical School. Previously Executive Director of the Harvard Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, his experience in research, education, administration, science policy, intellectual property, science consulting, and outreach have combined to support and advance stem cell science and discovery at Harvard.

Human Heart-Forming Organoids – For the first time, researchers have reproduced early human heart development in a culture dish using human pluripotent stem cells.

Bile Duct Organoids Used to Repair Human Livers – A new study has found that when transplanted into damaged mouse or human livers, cholangiocyte organoids functioned normally and repaired bile ducts.

Reversing Severe Muscle Wasting in Disease, Aging, and Trauma – Scientists have discovered a novel protein that triggers muscle stem cells to regenerate, leading to complete muscle replacement and movement in mouse models.

Deletion of Tumor Suppressor Gene Enhances HSC Self-Renewal – Deletions of the Kmt2c gene selectively protect cycling hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from differentiation without inducing HSC proliferation themselves.

Photo Reference: Courtesy of Dr. Willy Lensch

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Dr. Sean Wu is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine. The Wu lab seeks to identify mechanisms responsible for human congenital heart disease, and uses mouse models and stem cells to study cardiovascular developmental biology, and to engineer cardiac tissue.

hESC-Derived Dopamine Progenitors for Parkinson’s Treatment– Researchers have generated midbrain dopamine neurons from hESCs, and manufactured large-scale cryopreserved dopamine progenitors for clinical use in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.

Reactivating Neural Crest Pluripotency – A new study suggests that cranial neural crest cells expand their developmental potential through a transient reacquisition of molecular signatures of pluripotency.

Engaging Eosinophils against Liver Injury – Scientists have discovered a mechanism of eosinophil-mediated liver protection that could serve as a therapeutic target to improve outcomes of patients undergoing liver transplantation.

Disrupting the Identity of Heart Muscle Cells – Mutations in the LMNA gene severely disrupt chromatin organization in cardiomyocytes, but not hepatocytes or adipocytes, leading to abnormal activation of non-heart muscle genes.

Photo Reference: Courtesy of Dr. Sean Wu

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Dr. Jürgen Knoblich is Scientific Director of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The Knoblich lab is known for the development of an organoid model of early brain development, and is currently using iPSCs and cerebral organoids to investigate inter-brain region interactions, neurodevelopmental disorders, and neuronal connections and functions.

Study Reveals Immune Driver of Brain Aging – Researchers have identified a key factor in mental aging, and suggested that it might be prevented or reversed by reprogramming myeloid glucose metabolism.

A Tonsil Organoid System for Studying Adaptive Immunity – Scientists have developed a tonsil organoid system, and used it to evaluate immune responses to rabies and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.

Antisense Oligonucleotide Targets IRF4 Gene to Treat Multiple Myeloma – Researchers have shown that silencing IRF4 with an antisense oligonucleotide impairs myeloma cell survival and promotes sensitivity to clinical drugs.

Illuminating the Path to Cervical Cancers – By creating novel organoid models, scientists have established a new approach to studying the biology of the cervix, and have identified key turning points in cancer development.

Photo Reference: Courtesy of Dr. Jürgen Knoblich

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Dr. Vivian Li is Group Leader of the Stem Cell and Cancer Biology Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute. The Li lab investigates how Wnt signaling controls stem cells in the healthy gut and during colorectal cancer development. The lab also aims to engineer functional intestinal constructs using patient-derived intestinal organoids.

Machine Learning and iPSC Approach for Drug Discovery – A machine learning approach has been developed to conduct network-based screens in iPSC-derived cells. The method identified a potential drug candidate for heart valve disease.

Mapping the Developing Intestine – Using single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics, scientists have mapped the development of the human intestine over time.

Sensory Neurons Promote HSC Mobilization – Scientists have shown that nociceptive nerves in the bone marrow, which are activated by external stimuli like ingestion of spicy foods, are required for hematopoietic stem cell mobilization.

Understanding Intestinal Stem Cell Self-Renewal and Differentiation – Scientists have identified a specific intestinal stem cell niche signaling pathway, the Wnt/planar cell polarity pathway, that regulates intestinal stem cell self-renewal and lineage decisions.

Photo Reference: Courtesy of Dr. Vivian Li

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Dr. Samira Musah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Associate Professor in Medicine at Duke University. The Musah lab applies stem cell biology to engineer functional models of the human kidney and brain, with the goal of developing novel therapeutic models for human kidney diseases and understanding the mechanisms of neurodegeneration in patients with chronic kidney disease and other pathological conditions.

Promoting Cardiac Repair after Injury – Investigators have found that lymphoangiocrine signals promote cardiac growth, repair and cardioprotection in mice — a process that is mediated by the extracellular protein reelin.

Restoring Sight by Rewinding the Epigenetic Clock – Inducing the expression of three Yamanaka transcription factors in mouse retinal ganglion cells restored youthful DNA methylation patterns, promoted axon regeneration after injury, and reversed vision loss.

Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Drive Fibrosis – Scientists have identified two bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cell subsets that drive fibrosis and progression of myeloproliferative neoplasms. They identified a drug that inhibits the mechanism involved.

New Tool for Cell Engineering– A comprehensive library of human transcription factors has been created that enables systematic investigation of transcription factor-based programming for cell engineering.

Photo Reference: Courtesy of Dr. Samira Musah

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Dr. Christopher Thomas Scott is the Dalton Tomlin Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine, and a member of the Daniel L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Scott is also emeritus faculty of the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics. His research centers on the ethical, legal, and social implications  of emerging biotechnologies.

Renewed Funding for Stem Cell Research in California – Voters in California have passed Proposition 14, which authorizes new government funding for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Genetics and Skin Cancer Susceptibility – Children with Fanconi anemia have extreme susceptibility to squamous cell carcinoma. Using patient-derived cells, investigators identified a critical DNA repair pathway that maintains the structure and function of human skin.

Membrane Tension Regulates Exit from Naive Pluripotency – Scientists have found that a decrease in membrane-to-cortex attachment is a cell-intrinsic mechanism that is essential for stem cells to exit pluripotency.

Memory T Cells in Human Skin – Researchers identify features of human skin tissue-resident memory T cells that differ from their murine counterparts, and reveal a role for the skin environment in their long-term persistence.

Photo Reference: Courtesy of Dr. Christopher Thomas Scott

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Dr. Matthias Lutolf is a Professor and Principal Investigator of the Laboratory of Stem Cell Bioengineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. The Lutolf lab uses cutting-edge bioengineering strategies for guiding stem cell-based development for the assembly of next-generation organoids with improved reproducibility and physiological relevance.

Eardrum Stem Cells – Researchers have identified stem cells of the eardrum, and found that their migration over the tissue helps maintain homeostasis.

Using “Monster Tumors” to Study Human Development – Investigators propose teratomas as a promising platform for studying human development.

Biobank of Rare, Lethal Tumors – An organoid biobank of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms has been created and used to understand the genetics and pathology of the disease.

Organoids Produce Embryonic Heart -Researchers grew embryonic organoids, called gastruloids, from mouse embryonic stem cells that mimicked the early stages of heart development in the embryo.

Photo Reference: Courtesy of Dr. Matthias Lutolf

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In this special episode of the Stem Cell Podcast, we speak with three PhD students from different parts of the world about their research in and outside of the lab.

Naveed Tavakol (pictured, right) is a biomedical engineering PhD student in the Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering at Columbia University under the advisement of Dr. Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic. As a National Science Foundation graduate research fellow, he is working on translational approaches to integrated organ-on-a-chip systems, with a specific focus on the hematopoietic system.

Nathasia Mudiwa Muwanigwa (pictured, left) is a PhD researcher in the Developmental and Cellular Biology group at the Luxembourg Center of Systems Biomedicine. She uses midbrain-specific organoids to model and study the molecular and cellular changes that occur in the midbrain during the progression of Parkinson’s disease. She is also the co-founder of Visibility STEM Africa.

Sarthak Sinha (pictured, center) has been working in Dr. Jeff Biernaskie’s Lab at the University of Calgary since the ninth grade. Now as an MD-PhD Candidate and a Vanier Scholar, his doctoral project utilizes single-cell genomics to understand mechanisms driving skin fibrosis and regeneration across different mammals.

Using Organoids for COVID-19 Drug Screening – Researchers have developed lung and colonic organoid models to study SARS-CoV-2 infection and perform drug screening to identify candidate therapeutics.

Making Airway Stem Cells from Patients’ Cells – iPSCs were directly differentiated into airway basal cells, a population resembling the stem cells of the airway epithelium.

Photo Reference: Courtesy of Nathasia Mudiwa Muwanigwa, Sarthak Sinha, and Naveed Tavakol.

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Dr. Miki Ebisuya is a Group Leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Barcelona. Her lab focuses on synthetic developmental biology, where they reconstitute developmental mechanisms by making artificial gene circuits, and study interspecies differences by comparing organoids of different animals.

Lab-Grown Tissue Grafts for Personalized Joint Replacement – Autologous fat-derived cells have been used to engineer cartilage-bone grafts that regenerated and repaired a jaw joint in a minipig model.

SARS-CoV-2 Infection in the Brain – Using brain organoids, researchers have found that SARS-CoV-2 infects choroid plexus cells, but not neurons or glia. This infection damages the epithelium, leading to leakage.

The Healing Power of Extracellular Vesicles – Using a heart-on-chip model, investigators have found that endothelial cell-derived extracellular vesicles contain cardioprotective proteins that rescue ischemia-reperfusion injury.

How Plant Stem Cells Resist Infection – The meristem, the collection of stem cells that builds plants, is resistant to viral infection. Scientists have identified a transcription factor that triggers innate antiviral immunity in the meristem of Arabidopsis.

Photo Reference: Courtesy of Dr. Miki Ebisuya

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Dr. Tom Cheung is an S H Ho Associate Professor of Life Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His lab investigates the molecular pathways that control muscle stem cell quiescence and stem cell-mediated tissue regeneration.

Organoid Model of Rare Genetic Disorder – Scientists generated organoids from individuals 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. They found defects in electrical activity, and identified a possible target to rescue phenotypes associated with the disease.

Susceptibility of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Brain Organoids – hiPSC-derived brain organoids were used to investigate the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to infect brain cells. The susceptibility to infection was low for neurons and astrocytes, but high for choroid plexus epithelial cells.

Mapping the Human Heart – Investigators used transcriptomic data to characterize six anatomical adult heart regions, creating the most extensive cell atlas of the human heart to date.

A Contributor to Fanconi Anemia – Scientists found that high levels of MYC expression promote proliferation and DNA damage in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells in individuals with Fanconi anemia.

Photo Reference: Courtesy of Dr. Tom Cheung

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