As a facility our aim is to make stem cell lines with the newest methods and with the best quality, either from patients or healthy volunteers. These donors give permission to use a small amount of their body material to make human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) by a method called ‘cellular reprogramming’. After quality control, the hiPSCs can then be used by researchers to better understand human diseases, for drug testing or to study early events in human development.
reNEW research
We generated our 400th hiPSC line from skin cells donated by the British artist Charlotte Jarvis. Charlotte already approached us in 2012 because of her deep fascination with science and her wish to support stem cell research. We have generated several hiPSC lines from her body material. One earlier line is used by more than 30 researchers. But also line #400 is special: For reprogramming we used a brand-new method where we only added chemical compounds to transform her skin cells into hiPSCs (‘chemical reprogramming’).
Image description
To celebrate our 400th hiPSC line we grew the cells in a text pattern and stained specific proteins with various colours.
Credits
Herak Manjikian, research technician, Leiden hiPSC Centre, reNEW Leiden.
Maury Wiendels, PhD candidate, Mummery lab, reNEW Leiden.
Emile Nühn, technician, Leiden hiPSC Centre, reNEW Leiden.
Christiaan Arendzen, research technician/ PhD candidate, Leiden hiPSC Centre, reNEW Leiden.
Christian Freund, head Leiden hiPSC Centre, reNEW Leiden.
