{"id":3286,"date":"2009-08-21T08:00:48","date_gmt":"2009-08-21T12:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=3286"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:39:20","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:39:20","slug":"stem-cells-%e2%80%93-boosting-the-chances-of-a-breakthrough-in-bone-repair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2009\/08\/stem-cells-%e2%80%93-boosting-the-chances-of-a-breakthrough-in-bone-repair\/","title":{"rendered":"Stem Cells \u2013 Boosting the Chances of a Breakthrough in Bone Repair"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Alexander<\/a>
Alexander Lichtler, associate professor, in his lab in the Department of Reconstructive Sciences. Photo by Lanny Nagler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whether it\u2019s an older adult who is suffering from osteoporosis, a soldier who has lost a limb, or a child born with a debilitating bone disorder \u2026 all may eventually benefit from the research being done in the lab of Alexander Lichtler in the Department of Reconstructive Sciences at the UConn Health Center.<\/p>\n

Lichtler\u2019s goal is to develop improved methods of changing stem cells into cells that can repair bones. \u201cThe reason that we want to do this is because the currently available methods for producing these cell types are generally not very efficient,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Lichtler first received state stem cell funding in 2006, the first year grants were awarded by the Connecticut Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee. His project was one of nine comprising the University\u2019s group project grant, Directing hES Derived Progenitor Cells into Musculoskeletal Lineages, headed by David Rowe and totaling $3.5 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I like to say that the good thing about embryonic stem cells is that they can become any cells in the body and the bad thing about embryonic stem cells is that they can become any cells in the body,\u201d says Lichtler. \u201cWe want to be able to push them in the direction we want them to go, and not let them do whatever they want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Lichtler and fellow researchers David Rowe, Ivo Kalajzic, and Peter Maye are focusing on deciphering the stages of bone cell development and how to control it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know most about bone but there are different types of bone cells \u2026 a skull bone is quite different than a long bone, a femur,\u201d Lichtler says. \u201cSo let\u2019s say a soldier sustained a head injury, you want to repair his skull with bone cells that will differentiate into a skull, not a leg bone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, scientists don\u2019t have accurate markers that show whether the cells you\u2019re seeing in the petri dish will eventually end up as leg, skull, or back bone.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the first steps in becoming a bone, cartilage, skin, or muscle cell is to become a mesoderm cell,\u201d Lichtler says, \u201cand one of our main goals is to develop ways to easily detect when a human embryonic stem cell has differentiated into a mesoderm cell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the group\u2019s research involves producing embryonic stem cells equipped with fluorescent protein markers that \u201ccome on\u201d when the cells have reached a certain differentiation stage. This will help them better determine whether the cells will become leg, skull, or back bones.<\/p>\n

This year Lichtler and Ernst Reichenberger, a fellow researcher in the Department of Reconstructive Sciences, were awarded an Established Investigator Grant from the state for $500,000. Their research zeroes in on a specific bone disorder \u2013 craniometaphyseal dysplasia. CMD is a rare and debilitating bone disease with sometimes fatal overgrowth of skull bones. It affects children and progresses throughout their life. There is currently no treatment.<\/p>\n

The researchers hope to obtain skin biopsies from CMD patients and compare them with normal skin cells to better understand how a gene mutation causes them to be different. They will first convert them into induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSC, which are very similar to embryonic stem cells, and then convert them into the types of bone cells that are defective in CMD patients before doing the analysis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn basic science, you never know what discovery will have some relevance to treatment,\u201d says Lichtler. \u201cThere\u2019s always a chance you\u2019ll learn something, some new concept of why this particular gene causes a mutation, and it may lead you to a new therapy. That\u2019s what we\u2019re hoping for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Health Center researchers are using embryonic stem cells to study bone cell development. Their goal \u2013 to develop better ways to change stem cells into cells that can repair bones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[45],"class_list":["post-3286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 19:28:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3286"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36975,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3286\/revisions\/36975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3286"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=3286"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}