Large-scale source of neural
stem cells hold great potential for the treatment of disorders
involving extensive tissue damage like spinal-cord injuries and
also for other neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s disease & Ischemic
cerebral stroke. Besides its therapeutic potential, such cells
would also serve as ex-vivo model for studying complex molecular
pathways governing neural cell fate choices. My project aims to
establish a method for large-scale expansion of embryonic neural
stem cells that retain the capacity to differentiate into characteristic
neural subtypes - namely neurons and glia. Using doxycycline inducible
N-myc expression, we have achieved a million fold expansion of
the embryonic NSC of cortical origin. The expanded cells not only
express the hallmark NSC markers but upon doxycycline withdrawal,
also retain the capacity to form neurons and glial cells in-vitro.
Further characterization of these cells in terms of their in-vivo
differentiation potential is currently underway.
Nagy lab
Cre
database
on demand
Ridham Desai, PhD student - (ridham<at>lunenfeld.ca)