Forward programming human induced pluripotent stem cells into chondrocytes by forced expression of SOX9

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Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are highly attractive for cartilage regenerative medicine, because they can be derived autologously in potentially unlimited amounts and comprise the inherent capacity to give rise to stable hyaline cartilage. Currently, there is no standard strategy to induce chondrogenic differentiation of hiPSCs, and the majority of proposed methods suffer from either low efficiency or are enormously laborious, thus impairing their applicability for regenerative medicine. In this project, hiPSCs will be directly induced into chondrocytes by genetic modification. This forward programming promises to considerably simplify hiPSC chondrogenesis by circumventing the complex regulatory networks of multistage hiPSC differentiation. Aim of this project is to generate high-quality cartilage from hiPSCs that meets the high quality standards set by human autologous chondrocytes that represent the current gold standard.