Generating macrophages from cultured embryonic stem cells

Macrophages are a type of white blood cell of the immune system that engulfs and digests cellular debris, foreign substances, microbes and cancer cells in a process called phagocytosis. They are often involved in development of inflammation, but in some settings can have the opposite effect. Much research is dedicated to investigating how macrophages develop and behave to generate better, more effective treatments for various diseases. This often involves growing macrophages in culture from precursor cells from mouse bone marrow. However, this method is crude, yielding cells that differ substantially from “real” macrophages, and requires the repeated use of animals. To eliminate this, as well as to develop more biologically relevant methods, we are investigating an alternative – the treatment of embryonic stem cells in culture with various development factors to produce macrophages that mirror the biology of “real” macrophages more closely. TO BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

Michael JH Ratcliffe

Student:

Partner:

University of Glasgow

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Toronto

Program: