Willerth, Stephanie (University of Victoria)

Purpose

Different kind of cells make up the brain and spinal cord. Replicating these complex structures provides us with a significant opportunity to discover how such tissues form in the body. Such engineered neural tissues can be used for applications in pharmacological screening instead of donated human tissues. One popular strategy for tissue engineering uses biomaterial scaffolds to deliver signals that promote stem cells to differentiate into neural tissue. My group works with human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), adult cells reprogrammed into a state where they can become any type of cell found in an organism. This property makes them an excellent cell source for tissue engineering. My group identified a number of chemical and physical cues that drive the differentiation of hiPSCs into neural tissue, which serves as a starting point for this research program. However, current methods for engineering neural tissue using hiPSCs require lengthy, labor intensive protocols. The overarching goal of this research program is to engineer functional neural tissues from hiPSCs by developing bioactive scaffolds that present the necessary chemical and physical cues for promoting rapid differentiation that can be translated into bioprinting applications. This research program consists of two different aims for achieving this goal, and the results of this research program will be used to generate neural tissue in a rapid and high throughput manner compared to current methods.