Stem Cell Dynamics: Exploration of the Stem Cell attractor Landscape

干细胞具有独特的能力，可以转化为任何细胞，形成人体内的各种组织。胚胎的生长和转化为人体是一个令人惊叹的自组装过程，在这个过程中，干细胞不仅是积木，也是建造者。最终大厦的蓝图被铭刻在每一个细胞中。每个细胞都必须根据自己的位置信息和环境信号来阅读和解释这张蓝图。因此，细胞可能决定保留自己的选择，自我更新和增殖，或者成为一个成熟的细胞，承担特定的角色，例如神经元、肝脏或心脏细胞。近年来，没有其他科学领域比干细胞研究更能激发我们的想象力。使用成人和胚胎干细胞来设计和再生组织和器官，开发治疗阿尔茨海默氏症？S和帕金森氏症？S病，多发性硬化症，视网膜变性，糖尿病和缺血性心脏病等退行性疾病的可能性，可能是社会所见过的医学科学中最重大和最令人兴奋的进步。追求这一愿景的最大挑战是了解影响干细胞分化为特定细胞类型(如肝细胞、神经元等)的决定的机制和因素。干细胞已从不同来源分离出来，目前在体外培养和维持。然而，缺乏对决定细胞命运的复杂过程的定量了解，意味着很难从体外培养的干细胞中设计出强大和特定的谱系。为了将体外分化的ES细胞用于人类干细胞治疗，必须推导出干细胞的数学模型，以帮助理解它们的行为，并允许开发有效的策略来操纵干细胞的命运。本项目旨在应用系统工程师经常使用的数学建模和分析技术来研究胚胎干细胞的行为，以了解控制干细胞在自我更新和分化之间选择的能力的机制。

Stem cells have the unique ability to transform into any cell to make every type of tissue in the human body. The growth and transformation of an embryo into a human body is an amazing self-assembling process in which stem cells are not only building blocks but also builders. The blueprint of the final edifice is inscribed in every single cell. Each cell has to read and interpret this blueprint, according to its positional information and environmental signals. As a result the cell may decide to keep its options open, self-renew and proliferate or become a mature cell and assume a specific role as a neuron, liver or heart cell for example.In recent years no other field of science has captured our imagination more than stem cell research. The possibility to use both adult and embryonic stem cells to engineer and regenerate tissues and organs, develop therapies for degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer?s and Parkinson?s disease, multiple sclerosis, retinal degeneration, diabetes and ischemic heard disease represents probably the most significant and exciting advance in medical science that society has ever seen. The biggest challenge in pursuit of this vision is to understand the mechanisms and factors that influence the decision of a stem cell to differentiate into a specific cell type i.e. liver cell, neuron etc. Stem cells have been isolated from different sources and are currently grown and maintained in vitro. However,the lack of a quantitative understanding ofthe complex processes underlying cell fate determination means that it has been difficult to engineer robust and specific lineages from stem cells grown in vitro. In order to use in vitro differentiated ES cells for human stem cell therapies, it is imperative to derive mathematical models of stem cells that will aid the understanding of their behaviour and will allow the development of effective strategies to manipulate stem cell fate.This project aims to apply mathematical modelling and analysis techniques, which are routinely used by systems engineers, to study the behaviour of embryonic stem cells in order to understand the mechanisms that control the ability of stem cells to choose between self renewal and differentiation.