Grant: Operating Grant

One of the major goals of regenerative medicine is to generate cells that are immunocompatible to the recipient and use them to repair damaged tissues and organs. Embryonic stem cells are the ideal cells for this purpose as they self-renew indefinitely in vitro and differentiate to all cell types in adult organism. Lack of immunocompatibility and ethical concerns surrounding derivation of human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) hindered their application for therapeutic purposes. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are ESC-like cells, which are derived from differentiated cells by overexpression of few factors. Similar to ESCs, iPSCs are pluripotent and differentiate to various cell types. Importantly, iPSCs are immunocompatible with the recipient as they are derived from the recipient's own cells (e.g. skin or blood cells). The focus of this proposal is to determine the molecular mechanism control iPSCs and ESCs. We will specifically focus on the role of translational control in ES/iPS cells biology. In addition we aim to study the role of translational control in somatic stem cells. Somatic stem cells are responsible for generating new cells in adult tissues. We will use different mouse models to investigate the effect of translation control on maintenance of hematopoietic stem cells.