Regenerative Medicine

Recommended Prerequisites

Basic knowledge of Cell Biology, Molecular Biology, Physiology and Biochemistry.

Teaching Methods

Theoretical classes: oral presentation of the subjects using audiovisual resources. The theoretical concepts will be accompanied and illustrated with examples, practical applications and case studies. Some theoretical classes will be administered by specialists. Laboratory classes: supervision of laboratory activities by teachers and postgraduate students. Students will be organized in groups.

Learning Outcomes

During this module the students will acquire skills about cellular- and non-cellular based therapies for the treatment of diseases, in particular cardiovascular diseases. The students will acquire skills in the use of stem cells for the creation of disease models. These disease models are very important in medicine for the study of diseases and to identify new therapeutic targets.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

Theoretical classes (26h) will cover the following topics:

1. Multipotent and pluripotent stem cells: identity and properties (6 h);

2. Cellular reprogramming (2 h);

3. Stem cells for diagnosis, treatment and modeling of diseases (5 h);

4. Biomaterials for stem cell culture, differentiation and transplantation; biomaterials for drug release; biomaterials for regeneration; biomaterials for biorobotics (4 h);

5. Organoids (1 h);

6. Cellular secretome: exosomes (4h);

7. Nanomedicine (2 h);

8. Gene editing (2 h);

Practical classes (18 h) will cover the following topics: stem cells, biomaterials and exosomes.

Head Lecturer(s)

Lino da Silva Ferreira

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Other: 10.0%
Report of a seminar or field trip: 30.0%
Exam: 60.0%

Bibliography

Recent scientific papers will support most of the classes. The following reviews articles are suggested:

1- Jonas Cerneckis, et al.. “Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs): molecular mechanisms of induction and applications”. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy (2024) 9:112.

2- Liu, C, et al. “Modeling human diseases with induced pluripotent stem cells: from 2D to 3D and beyond”. Development 2018, 145(5), dev156166.

3- Pittenger, et al. “Mesenchymal stem cell perspective: cell biology to clinical progress”. npj Regenerative Medicine 2019, 4, 22.

4- Wilkinson, et al. “Haematopoietic stem cell self-renewal in vivo and ex vivo”. Nature Reviews Genetics 2020, 21, 541-554.

5- Zesheng Wang, et al. “Extracellular Vesicle Preparation and Analysis: A State-of-the-Art Review”. Advanced Science 2024, 11, 2401069.

6- Connor A. Tsuchida, et al. “Targeted nonviral delivery of genome editors in vivo”. PNAS 2024, 121 (11), e2307796121.

7- Hou, X, et al. “Lipid nanoparticles for mRNA delivery”. Nature Reviews Materials, 2021, 6, 1078.