The Regenerative Medicine program has transitioned from Common Fund support. For more information, please visit https://commonfund.nih.gov/stemcells.

Please note that since the Regenerative Medicine Program is no longer supported by the Common Fund, the program website is being maintained as an archive and will not be updated on a regular basis. 

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) technology is transforming biological research. IPSCs behave like embryonic stem cells and have the potential to become any cell type of the human body. IPSCs can be used as a tool to study human diseases, for drug discovery, and to develop cell therapies. However, there are limitations that hinder application of iPSCs in research and in the clinic including the lack of well-defined methods required to generate quality, mature cell types derived from iPSCs. 

The goal of the NIH Common Fund Regenerative Medicine Program’s (RMP) Stem Cell Translation Laboratory (SCTL) at The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) was to harness the potential of iPSCs by creating technology to move closer to clinical application for drug discovery and regenerative medicine. Through a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach, NCATS’ SCTL scientists worked to overcome the technical hurdles in iPSC technology by:  

•    Establishing detailed quality control (QC) standards to define pluripotency and differentiated cell types;
•    Developing standardized methods for producing mature cells from iPSCs that meet QC and reproducibility standards; and
•    Discovering small molecule reagents to replace expensive recombinant proteins, xenogenic material, and undefined media components in cell differentiation protocols.

SCTL Collaborations 
SCTL collaborated with investigators to address technological hurdles impeding the transition of iPSC research from bench to bedside. The collaborations aimed to develop efficient and standardized protocols to produce specific cell types from iPSCs. SCTL will continue to work with collaborators to aid in developing these protocols and  use their state-of-the art equipment such as:

•    Quantitative, high-throughput, small molecule screening 
•    Robotic automation of cell culture workflows
•    Multiscale assay development
•    3-D bioprinting 
•    Integrated platforms to profile gene and protein expression, and measure functional endpoints in standard cultures, as well as on the single cell level

All data and resources produced from collaborations will be accessible through a joint scientific publication and the SCTL website. A list of current collaborators is below. To learn more about SCTL take a virtual tour. 

SCTL Collaboration 
Principal Investigator(s) Institution Project Title
Ravi Iyengar, Eric Sobie, Christoph Schaniel Mount Sinai A library of signatures from iPSCs and their derived cardiomyocytes and neurons – collaboration between SCTL and LINCS Consortium
Barbara Mallon, Pamela Robey NIH Stem Cell Unit & NIH NIDC iPSC characterization and standardization
Mustafa Sahin Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School Optimization of iPSC-derived GABAergic neuron differentiation protocols
 
Mark Schurdak  University of Pittsburgh Cell differentiation protocol for medium-sized spiny neurons for Huntington’s

Clive Svendsen, Dhruv Sareen

 Cedars-Sinai A library of signatures from iPSCs and their derived cardiomyocytes and neurons – collaboration between SCTL and LINCS Consortium
Joseph Wu  Stanford University TBX5Clover2/NKX2.5TagRFP hiPSCs for isolating human lineage-specific cardiovascular cells

 

 

This page last reviewed on June 9, 2021