Objectives
The major objectives of this program are to: i) identify, isolate, characterise and transplant stem cells, either tissue-specific stem cells or pluripotent cells generated from ES/iPS cells; ii) enhance stem cell activity in patients and ageing individuals to effect tissue repair; iii) use ES and iPS cells for drug screening and personalised medicine to investigate and ameliorate human diseases.
Tissues such as intestine, skin and blood shed millions of cells each day placing a major burden on the self-renewing stem cell population to sustain the tissue. In contrast, other tissues such as the CNS and muscle have long-lasting cell populations, and activation of otherwise quiescent stem cells occurs only in the context of injury and/or ageing for homeostasis and tissue repair. Given these functionally diverse types of stem cell models, it is critical to investigate examples of each in order to understand the divergent strategies that they may employ, and to anticipate the possibly diverse translational strategies that may be required to bring them to the clinic. Therefore, diverse tissue and organ stem cell systems including blood, pancreas, cardiac and skeletal muscle, hair follicle and nervous system will be explored by the 22 research team members, who will pool their expertise in Revive.
Ex vivo analysis and manipulation of stem cells
- Véronique Duranthon / Corinne Cotinot
- Kenneth McElreavey / Anu Bashamboo
- Christian Muchardt
- Pablo Navarro-Gil
- Raphael Scharfmann
In vivo analysis of stem cells in model organisms
- Michel Cohen-Tannoudji
- Ana Cumano
- Philippe Herbomel
- Han Li
- Didier Montarras
- Frédéric Relaix
- David Sassoon/Giovanna Marazzi
- François Schweisguth
- Shahragim Tajbakhsh