posted on 2011-04-29, 00:00authored byIgor Titushkin, Shan Sun, Jennifer Shin, Michael Cho
Realization of the exciting potential for stem-cell-based biomedical and therapeutic applications, including tissue engineering, requires an understanding of the cell-cell and cell-environment interactions. To this end, recent efforts have been focused on the manipulation of adult stem cell differentiation using inductive soluble factors, designing suitable mechanical environments, and applying noninvasive physical forces. Although each of these different approaches has been successfully applied to regulate stem cell differentiation, it would be of great interest and importance to integrate and optimally combine a few or all of the physicochemical differentiation cues to induce synergistic stem cell differentiation. Furthermore, elucidation of molecular mechanisms that mediate the effects of multiple differentiation cues will enable the researcher to better manipulate stem cell behavior and response.
Funding
This work was supported, in part, by National Institutes of Health grants (GM060741, EB006067) and by a grant from the Office of Navy Research (N00014-06-1-0100), and by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) Grant funded by the Korean government (MEST) (no. 2007-0056690, JHS).
History
Publisher Statement
The original source for this publication is at Hindawi Publishing Corporation; DOI: 10.1155/2010/743476