UKRMP Hub: The Engineered Cell Environment.

干细胞在医学上具有巨大的潜力，因为它们可以在体内生长成许多不同类型的细胞。我们的目标是建立一个由科学家和临床医生组成的研究网络，致力于了解干细胞在正常组织环境中的行为。干细胞周围的环境或人体内的“小环境”对干细胞的行为以及它们是否能够修复受损的器官有着深远的影响。通过了解利基如何影响组织中的干细胞，我们的目标是利用这一知识开发未来治疗严重不可治疗疾病的方法。为了促进组织和器官的“健康再生”，我们将使用两个主要策略：(1)在器官损伤的实验模型中测试药物和合成小分子。我们希望通过添加药物来影响干细胞在其利基环境中的行为。(2)治疗受损组织和器官的另一种方法是将干细胞或干细胞中的细胞移植到受损的器官中-这种治疗方法被称为细胞疗法，今天用于治疗患者的一个例子是骨髓移植。虽然这种治疗方法对许多疾病是成功的，但在某些情况下，这种治疗方法不起作用，细胞生长不好。我们的网络想要了解为什么利基环境并不总是允许细胞生长良好。我们希望利用细胞移植开发新的治疗方法，以促进组织和器官的健康再生。我们的目标是为目前患有无法治疗的疾病的患者开发治疗方法，这些疾病影响(A)肝、(B)关节和(C)肺。(A)在英国，肝脏疾病是第五大最常见的死亡原因。目前对终末期肝硬变和急性肝功能衰竭患者的治疗是肝移植，但器官供应不能满足需求，许多患者在等待器官时死亡。那些接受移植的人需要终身免疫抑制，并伴随着感染、癌症、肾脏和心血管疾病的风险。因此，确定替代疗法显然势在必行。我们的研究主题之一将调查使用药物或细胞疗法的肝脏健康再生。(B)我们中心的另一项研究主题是研究骨关节炎(OA)的新疗法，这是增长最快的主要健康状况之一，仅在英国就有超过800万人受到影响。虽然终末期疾病适合关节置换，但迫切需要通过修复和再生策略来解决早期疾病阶段。(C)我们也在研究肺的再生；在英国，慢性肺部疾病每年导致600万个住院日。显然，开展这项研究的需求尚未得到满足。我们将把拥有我们认为应对这些科学和医学挑战所需的不同专业知识的科学家聚集在一起。通过将这些专家与在这些临床领域工作的医生联系起来，并帮助他们合作，我们希望在开发这些慢性疾病的新疗法方面取得更快的进展。

Stem cells have great potential in medicine as they can grow into many different cell types in the body. Our aim is to create a research network of scientists and clinicians working towards understanding how stem cells behave within their normal tissue environment. The environment or "Niche" within the body that surrounds stem cells has a profound effect on the behaviour of stem cells and whether they can repair damaged organs. By understanding how the Niche influences stem cells in tissues we aim to use this knowledge to develop future treatments for serious untreatable diseases.To promote "healthy regeneration" in tissues and organs, we will use 2 main strategies: (1) test drugs and small synthetic molecules in experimental models of organ injury. We hope to influence the behaviour of the stem cells within their Niche environment by adding drugs. (2) Another way of treating damaged tissue and organs is to transplant stem cells or cells from stem cells into the damaged organ - this kind of treatment is known as a cell therapy and an example of this used today to treat patients is bone marrow transplantation. Whilst this treatment is successful for many diseases, in some cases this treatment does not work and the cells do not grow well. Our network wants to understand why the Niche environment does not always allow cells to grow well. We hope to develop novel treatments using cell transplantation to promote healthy regeneration of tissue and organs.We aim to develop treatments for patients who are currently suffering from untreatable diseases affecting the (a) liver, (b) joints and the (c) lungs. (a) Liver disease is the 5th most common cause of death in the UK. The current treatment for patients with end-stage cirrhosis and acute liver failure is a liver transplant, however organ availability cannot meet demand and many patients die waiting for an organ. Those who do undergo transplantation require lifelong immunosuppression with concomitant risks of infection, cancer, renal and cardiovascular disease. Thus, there is a clear imperative to identify alternatives treatments. One of our research themes will investigate healthy regeneration of the liver using drugs or cell therapies. (b) Another research theme from our Hub investigates new treatments for Osteoarthritis (OA) which is one of the fastest most rapidly increasing major health conditions, with over 8 million people affected in the UK alone. Whilst end-stage disease is suited to joint replacement, there is an urgent need to address earlier disease stages with repair and regenerative strategies. (c) We are also investigating regeneration of the lung; chronic lung disease is responsible for 6 million inpatient bed days a year in the UK. There is a clear unmet need for this research to be carried out.We will bring together scientists with the different kinds of expertise that we think are required to tackle these scientific and medical challenges. By linking these experts with doctors working in these clinical areas and helping them to collaborate together we hope to make more rapid progress in the development of new treatments for these chronic diseases.