Immunogenicity test platform - in vitro and in vivo

再生医学是医学的一个分支，旨在替换受损或患病的组织，从而治疗并有可能治愈目前无法治愈的疾病。目前正在研究两种不同的再生医学方法：第一种是刺激人体自身的细胞来修复组织；第二种是将新细胞移植到体内。本研究计划侧重于第二种方法，特别是多能干细胞的治疗潜力。多能干细胞（简称PSCs）是能够变成任何细胞或组织的“主细胞”。它们也能够自我更新，这意味着它们有能力无限地复制自己。PSCs有两种类型——胚胎干细胞（ESCs）和诱导多能干细胞（iPSCs）。ESCs来自非常早期的植入前胚胎，而iPSCs是通过使用最近开发的称为细胞重编程的技术将成年细胞恢复到多能状态来制造的。就像ESCs一样，iPSCs可以无限扩张，可以用来制造任何组织。尽管在利用ESCs和iPSCs制造不同类型的人体组织方面已经取得了巨大的进展，但仍有许多未解之谜。特别是，目前尚不清楚来自ESCs和iPSCs的细胞和组织产品是否会被患者的免疫系统排斥，就像如果受体和供体没有“很好地匹配”，实体器官（如肾脏和肝脏）也会被排斥一样。我们的研究旨在帮助解决这个问题。通过实验室实验和动物（小鼠）研究的结合，我们将确定两种细胞产品（ESC衍生的神经细胞和ipsc衍生的肝细胞）是否能够激活人体免疫系统。我们之所以选择这些特殊的细胞产品，是因为这两种产品都将在帕金森病和肝功能衰竭患者的临床试验中进行测试。我们认为这项研究很重要。除了提供两种特定临床产品的信息外，我们的项目旨在建立一种通用方案，用于测试未来的细胞疗法，这样做有可能显著推进再生细胞治疗领域。

Regenerative medicine is a branch of medicine that aims to replace damaged or diseased tissue, thereby treating and potentially curing illnesses that are currently untreatable. Two different regenerative medicine approaches are currently being investigated: the first is to stimulate the body's own cells to repair the tissue; the second is to transplant new cells into the body. This research proposal focuses on the second approach, and in particular on the therapeutic potential of pluripotent stem cells. Pluripotent stem cells (or PSCs for short) are "master cells" capable of becoming any cell or tissue. They are also able to self-renew, meaning that they have the ability to produce endless copies of themselves. PSCs come in two types - embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). ESCs come from very early preimplantation embryos, whereas iPSCs are made by forcing adult cells back into a pluripotent state by using fairly recently developed technology known as cell reprogramming. Just like ESCs, iPSCs can expand indefinitely and can be used to make any tissue.Although there has been a huge amount of progress in making different types of human tissue from ESCs and iPSCs there are still lots of unanswered questions. In particular it is not known if cell and tissue products derived from ESCs and iPSCs will be rejected by the patient's immune system, in the same way that solid organs (like kidney and liver) are rejected if the recipient and donor are not "well matched". Our research aims to help address that question. Through a combination of laboratory experiments and animal (mouse) studies we will determine whether or not two cell products (ESC derived nerve cells and iPSC-derived liver cells) are capable of activating the human immune system. We have chosen these particular cell products as both are about to be tested in clinical trials involving patients with Parkinson's disease and liver failure.We believe that this study is important. As well as providing information on two specific clinical products - our project aims to establish a generic protocol for testing future cellular therapies and in doing so has the potential to significantly advance the field of regenerative cellular therapy.