The Computational and Chemical Biology of the Stem Cell Niche

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Stem cells in tissue exist within a specialist environment termed the "niche".The niche ("the soil") that surrounds stem/progenitor cells ("the seed") in developing or damaged organs has a profound effect upon the behavior of the stem cells.The focus of this application is to bring together stem cell researchers together with chemists to synthesize artificial niches that will enable stem cell to: (1) grow in a more efficient and controlled manner (2) be differentiated into functioning cells that could be used to repair damaged tissue. This project will produce large amounts of data and so to efficiently capture and analyse all this data we will collaborate actively with experts in the handling and analysis of such large amounts of data - bioinformaticians.This facility will be available to all stem cell and regenerative medicine researchers throughout the UK at minimal cost to help the UK regenerative medicine community as a whole to rapidly develop new stem cell based and regenerative therapies for patients. We envisage the creation of implantable artificial niches that will control and guide the development of replacement issues from stem cells.