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cxAn MIT team has developed new technology that could jump-start scientists' ability to create specific cell types from human embryonic stem cells, a feat with implications for developing replacementorgans and a variety of other tissue engineering applications.
The scientists have already identified a simple method for producing substantially pure populations of epithelial-like cells from humanembryonic stem cells. Epithelial cells could be useful in making synthetic skin.
Human embryonic stem cells (hES) have the potential to differentiate into a variety of specialized cells, but coaxingthem to do so is difficult. Several factors are known to influence their behavior. One of them is the material the cells grow upon outside the body, which is the focus of the current work.
"Untilnow there has been no quick, easy way to assess how a given material will affect cell behavior," said Robert Langer, the Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering. Langer is thesenior author of a paper on the work that will appear in the June 13 online issue of Nature Biotechnology.
The new technique is not only fast; it also allows scientists to test hundreds to thousands ofdifferent materials at the same time. The trick? "We miniaturize the process," said Daniel G. Anderson, first author of the paper and a research associate in the Department of Chemical Engineering.Anderson and Langer are coauthors with Shulamit Levenberg, also a chemical engineering research associate.
The team developed robotic technology to deposit more than 1,700 spots of biomaterial (roughly500 different materials in triplicate) on a glass slide measuring only 25 millimeters wide by 75 long. Twenty such slides, or microarrays, can be made in a single day. Exposure to ultraviolet lightpolymerizes the biomaterials, making each spot rigid and thus making the microarray ready for "seeding" with hES or other cells. (In the current work, the team seeded some arrays with hES and some...