[Editors] EMBARGOED: MIT technology jump-starts human embryonic stem cell work

[MIT News Office]

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE, SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 2004, 1:00 P.M. EDT

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MIT technology jump-starts human embryonic stem cell work
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EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE
SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 2004, 1:00 P.M. EDT
Contact: Elizabeth A. Thomson
Phone: 617-258-5402
Email: thomson at mit.edu

or

Contact: Patti Richards
Phone: 617-253-8923
Email: prichards at mit.edu

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EDITORS: Photo available
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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--An 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 
replacement organs 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 human 
embryonic 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 coaxing them 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.

"Until now 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 the senior 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 of different 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 (roughly 500 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 light polymerizes 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 with embryonic muscle cells.)

Each seeded microarray can then be placed in a different solution, 
including such things as growth factors, to incubate. "We can 
simultaneously process several microarrays under a variety of 
conditions," Anderson said.

Another plus: the microarrays work with a minimal number of cells, 
growth factors and other media. "That's especially important for human 
embryonic stem cells because the cells are hard to grow, and the media 
necessary for their growth are expensive," Anderson said. Many of the 
media related to testing the cells, such as antibodies, are also 
expensive.

In the current work, the scientists used an initial screening to find 
especially promising biomaterials for the differentiation of hES into 
epithelial cells. Additional experiments identified "a host of 
unexpected materials effects that offer new levels of control over hES 
cell behavior," the team writes, demonstrating the power of quick, easy 
screenings.

This work was funded by the National Science Foundation and the 
National Institutes of Health.

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