Women’s contribution to stem cell research for osteoarthritis: an opinion paper

Embryonic stem cell-based in vitro models to study early mammalian development

Embryogenesis is a fascinating mystery. How a single fertilized egg, the zygote, reads out its genetic information and turns into a fully formed, multicellular organism still defies detailed understanding. <br/>An adult organism can consist of trillions of cells of different types, organized to form various complex tissues and organs. To obtain...

Engineered cell culture microenvironments for mechanobiology studies of brain neural cells

The biomechanical properties of the brain microenvironment, which is composed of different neural cell types, the extracellular matrix, and blood vessels, are critical for normal brain development and neural functioning. Stiffness, viscoelasticity and spatial organization of brain tissue modulate proliferation, migration, differentiation, and...

On cooperativity in cellular habitats, with quantitative experiments and modelling

Tales of a Fountain of Youth and the invention of medicine illustrate our age-long obsession with two themes: life and death. What it takes to stay alive, and not to be dead, is a basic question in science that is easy to state, and yet difficult to address at a profound level. One striking feature of many living organisms is the ability of...

Cytostretch, an Organ-on-Chip Platform

Organ-on-Chips (OOCs) are micro-fabricated devices which are used to culture cells in order to mimic functional units of human organs. The devices are designed to simulate the physiological environment of tissues in vivo. Cells in some types of OOCs can be stimulated in situ by electrical and/or mechanical actuators. These actuations can mimic...