Center for Regenerative Medicine of Boston University and Boston Medical Center

Center for
regenerative medicine

The Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM) is a joint effort between Boston University and Boston Medical Center that brings together seven principal investigators addressing various aspects of developmental biology, stem cells, regeneration and injury, cell lineage specification and disease modeling with a major focus on induced Pluripotent Stem Cells or iPSCs.
Upcoming Seminar: Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, PhD
Principal Investigator, Sánchez Alvarado Lab Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer Stowers Institute for Medical Research Kansas City, MO TBD

Discover CReM

About CReM

Human health and development depend on dynamic networks of physical, and functional, interactions between proteins. However, the details of these networks – how they are formed and how they function – are largely unknown.

Upcoming Seminars

Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, PhD

Principal Investigator, Sánchez Alvarado Lab
Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer
Stowers Institute for Medical Research
Kansas City, MO

TBD

Date: June 13, 2023 9:00 am

Special Guests

Charles Murry, MD, PhD

Professor, Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Bioengineering and Medicine/Cardiology
Director, Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine (ISCRM)
University of Washington School of Medicine

TBD

Su Ryon Shin, PhD

Assistant Professor of Medicine, Bringham and Women’s Hospital
Principal Investigator, the Shin Laboratory
Harvard Medical School

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Financial Support

Research in The Center for Regenerative Medicine is made possible by the generous financial support of many organizations and individuals.

Research Programs

CReM in the News!

Centenarian Painting

Age-related changes in immune cell composition and functionality are associated with multimorbidity
and mortality. However, many centenarians delay the onset of aging-related disease suggesting the presence of elite
immunity that remains highly functional at extreme old age.

To identify immune-specific patterns of aging and extreme human longevity, we analyzed novel single cell
profiles from the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of a random sample of 7 centenarians (mean age 106)
and publicly available single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) datasets that included an additional 7 centenarians as
well as 52 people at younger ages (20–89 years).

The analysis confirmed known shifts in the ratio of lymphocytes to myeloid cells, and noncytotoxic to
cytotoxic cell distributions with aging, but also identified significant shifts from CD4+ T cell to B cell populations in
centenarians suggesting a history of exposure to natural and environmental immunogens. We validated several of
these findings using flow cytometry analysis of the same samples. Our transcriptional analysis identified cell type
signatures specific to exceptional longevity that included genes with age-related changes (e.g., increased expression of
STK17A, a gene known to be involved in DNA damage response) as well as genes expressed uniquely in centenarians’
PBMCs (e.g., S100A4, part of the S100 protein family studied in age-related disease and connected to longevity and
metabolic regulation).

Collectively, these data suggest that centenarians harbor unique, highly functional immune systems
that have successfully adapted to a history of insults allowing for the achievement of exceptional longevity.

Click here to see the article
Click here to see the USA Today Article

Dysfunction of alveolar epithelial type 2 cells (AEC2s), the facultative progenitors of lung alveoli,
is implicated in pulmonary disease pathogenesis, highlighting the importance of human in vitro
models. However, AEC2-like cells in culture have yet to be directly compared to their in vivo
counterparts at single-cell resolution. Here, we performed head-to-head comparisons among the
transcriptomes of primary (1°) adult human AEC2s, their cultured progeny, and human induced
pluripotent stem cell–derived AEC2s (iAEC2s). We found each population occupied a distinct
transcriptomic space with cultured AEC2s (1° and iAEC2s) exhibiting similarities to and differences
from freshly purified 1° cells. Across each cell type, we found an inverse relationship between
proliferative and maturation states, with preculture 1° AEC2s being most quiescent/mature and
iAEC2s being most proliferative/least mature. Cultures of either type of human AEC2s did not
generate detectable alveolar type 1 cells in these defined conditions; however, a subset of iAEC2s
cocultured with fibroblasts acquired a transitional cell state described in mice and humans to arise
during fibrosis or following injury. Hence, we provide direct comparisons of the transcriptomic
programs of 1° and engineered AEC2s, 2 in vitro models that can be harnessed to study human lung
health and disease.

Click here to access the full article

Individuals homozygous for the ‘‘Z’’ mutation in alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency are known to be at increased
risk for liver disease. It has also become clear that some degree of risk is similarly conferred by the heterozygous
state. A lack ofmodel systems that recapitulate heterozygosity in human hepatocytes has limited the
ability to study the impact of a single Z alpha-1 antitrypsin (ZAAT) allele on hepatocyte biology. Here, we
describe the derivation of syngeneic induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) engineered to determine the
effects of ZAAT heterozygosity in iPSC-hepatocytes (iHeps). We find that heterozygous MZ iHeps exhibit
an intermediate disease phenotype and share with ZZ iHeps alterations in AAT protein processing and
downstream perturbations including altered endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondrial morphology,
reduced mitochondrial respiration, and branch-specific activation of the unfolded protein response in cell
subpopulations. Our model of MZ heterozygosity thus provides evidence that a single Z allele is sufficient
to disrupt hepatocyte homeostatic function.

 

Click here to access the full article

Summary

A robust method of producing mature T cells from iPSCs is needed to realize their therapeutic potential. NOTCH1 is known to be required for the production of hematopoietic progenitor cells with T cell potential in vivo. Here we identify a critical window during mesodermal
differentiation when Notch activation robustly improves access to definitive hematopoietic progenitors with T/NK cell lineage potential. Low-density progenitors on either OP9-hDLL4 feeder cells or hDLL4-coated plates favored Tcell maturation into TCRab+CD3+CD8+ cells
that express expected T cell markers, upregulate activation markers, and proliferate in response to T cell stimulus. Single-cell RNAseq shows Notch activation yields a 6-fold increase in multi-potent hematopoietic progenitors that follow a developmental trajectory toward Tcells with clear similarity to post-natal human thymocytes.We conclude that early mesodermal Notch activation during hematopoietic differentiation is a missing stimulus with broad implications for producing hematopoietic progenitors with definitive characteristics.

Access the paper here

Announcing

Andrew A. Wilson MD as the Alpha-1 Foundation’s new Scientific Director FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 10, 2022- The Alpha-1 Foundation announces the appointment of Andrew A. Wilson, MD as its new Scientific Director. Dr. Wilson assumes this role with a long-standing passion and commitment to the Alpha-1 community. “On behalf of the Alpha-1 Foundation, I am excited to work with Dr. Wilson to continue the mission-focused work of the Foundation that has been at the forefront of Alpha-1 research for nearly 30 years,” states Scott Santarella, President and CEO of the Alpha-1 Foundation. As a pulmonary and critical care clinician-scientist with a focus on regenerative medicine and stem cell biology, Dr. Wilson’s goal is to advance understanding of and treatment for genetic causes of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and the most common genetic cause of COPD, Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (Alpha-1). He has been an active member of the Alpha-1 community since 2006, serving as the head of the Clinical Resource Center (CRC) at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, member of the Grant Advisory Committee (GAC) and member of the Research Registry Working Group. Dr Wilson is also site Principal Investigator of the Alpha-1 Biomarkers Consortium (A1BC) study and also of the Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency Adult Clinical and Genetic Linkage Study at Boston University. Dr. Wilson first became involved with the Alpha-1 Foundation through research during his pulmonary and critical care fellowship at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. Interested in developing gene therapies for lung disease, he applied for grant funding from the Alpha-1 Foundation in 2006 and was fortunate to be the recipient of a fellowship grant. Over time, his interest in Alpha-1 grew as he became acquainted with the late John W. Walsh and met Alpha-1 patients at Foundation meetings and events. “I am honored and humbled to have been selected as the new Scientific Director of the Alpha-1 Foundation. Many researchers who are currently working on Alpha-1 research, myself included, probably wouldn’t be doing so if it were not for the support they have received from the Alpha-1 Foundation over the years. In the same vein, having an organized patient community is key since translational research relies upon access to patients with the disease. Researchers must be able to find patients. We are fortunate that Alphas are so enthusiastic and generous in their participation in research. I hope that as Scientific Director I will be able to help the Foundation to advance its mission and work towards a cure for AATD.” In 2012, Dr. Wilson opened the Alpha-1 Center, combining the CRC and the Alpha-1 research program, which has since grown into one of the largest CRCs in the Northeast. The CRC at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine is highly engaged with the Alpha-1 community through a variety of mechanisms. The Wilson Lab, located at the Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM) of Boston University/ Boston Medical Center, maintains an active research program focused on Alpha-1. They use patient-derived stem cells, called “induced pluripotent stem cells” or “iPSCs” that can be coaxed to become liver or lung cells in a dish. These cells are used to study how Alpha-1 works in patient cells in the lab and use that system to test potential therapeutics. They also share the cells with other researchers for use in their research efforts directed at developing treatments for Alpha-1 patients. The four core areas of Dr. Wilson’s research are: I) to confirm the clinical significance of the iPSC platform to model in vivo patient biology and demonstrate its potential for testing potential therapeutic agents; II) to better understand the genetic factors and mechanistic drivers that predispose subsets of Alpha-1 patients to develop clinical disease; III) to elucidate the mechanistic contribution of putative COPD susceptibility genes to lung disease pathogenesis; and IV) to develop gene or cell-based therapies for Alpha-1. Dr. Wilson and the Wilson Lab have been actively involved in the Alpha-1 community, participating as a team in the annual Escape to the Cape bike trek on Cape Cod for the past eight years and hosting Alpha-1 support groups from Massachusetts to Maine for visits to CReM many times over the years. These visits have helped inform the CRC about what is important to the patient community and have allowed patients to hear about ongoing research. In some cases, patients have even been able to see their own cells growing in the lab. The Alpha-1 community honored Dr. Wilson in 2014 with the Shillelagh award at the annual Celtic Connection fundraising event to honor his outstanding commitment to Alpha-1

Cystic fibrosis is a monogenic lung disease caused by dysfunction of the cystic fibrosis
transmembrane conductance regulator anion channel, resulting in significant morbidity and
mortality. The progress in elucidating the role of CFTR using established animal and cellbased
models led to the recent discovery of effective modulators for most individuals with CF.
However, a subset of individuals with CF do not respond to these modulators and there is an
urgent need to develop novel therapeutic strategies. In this study, we generate a panel of
airway epithelial cells using induced pluripotent stem cells from individuals with common or
rare CFTR variants representative of three distinct classes of CFTR dysfunction. To measure
CFTR function we adapt two established in vitro assays for use in induced pluripotent stem
cell-derived airway cells. In both a 3-D spheroid assay using forskolin-induced swelling as
well as planar cultures composed of polarized mucociliary airway epithelial cells, we detect
genotype-specific differences in CFTR baseline function and response to CFTR modulators.
These results demonstrate the potential of the human induced pluripotent stem cell platform
as a research tool to study CF and in particular accelerate therapeutic development for CF
caused by rare variants.

 

Click here to see the article

SUMMARY
Liver damage and an exacerbated inflammatory response are hallmarks of Ebola virus (EBOV) infection. Little is known about the
intrinsic response to infection in human hepatocytes and their contribution to inflammation. Here, we present an induced pluripotent
stem cell (iPSC)-derived hepatocyte-like cell (HLC) platform to define the hepato-intrinsic response to EBOV infection.We used this platform
to show robust EBOV infection, with characteristic ultrastructural changes and evidence for viral replication. Transcriptomics analysis
revealed a delayed response with minimal early transcriptomic changes, followed by a general downregulation of hepatic function
and upregulation of interferon signaling, providing a potential mechanism by which hepatocytes participate in disease severity and liver
damage. Using RNA-fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), we showed that IFNB1 and CXCL10 were mainly expressed in non-infected
bystander cells. We did not observe an inflammatory signature during infection. In conclusion, iPSC-HLCs are an immune competent
platform to study responses to EBOV infection.

Click here to see the article

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified dozens of loci associated with chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease (COPD) susceptibility; however, the function of associated genes in the cell type(s) affected in
disease remains poorly understood, partly due to a lack of cell models that recapitulate human alveolar biology.
Here, we apply CRISPR interference to interrogate the function of nine genes implicated in COPD by GWAS in
induced pluripotent stem cell–derived type 2 alveolar epithelial cells (iAT2s). We find that multiple genes
implicated by GWAS affect iAT2 function, including differentiation potential, maturation, and/or proliferation.
Detailed characterization of the GWAS gene DSP demonstrates that it regulates iAT2 cell-cell junctions, proliferation,
mitochondrial function, and response to cigarette smoke–induced injury. Our approach thus elucidates the
biological function, as well as disease-relevant consequences of dysfunction, of genes implicated in COPD by GWAS
in type 2 alveolar epithelial cells.

 

See the full article here

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) reside at the top of the hematopoietic hierarchy and can give rise to all the mature blood cell types in our body, while at the same time maintaining a pool of HSCs through self-renewing divisions. This potential is reflected in their functional definition as cells that are capable of long-term multi-lineage engraftment upon transplantation. While all HSCs meet these criteria, subtle differences exist between developmentally different populations of these cells. Here we present a comprehensive overview of traditional and more recently described markers for phenotyping HSCs and their downstream progeny. To address the need to assess the growing number of surface molecules expressed in various HSC-enriched fractions at different developmental stages, we have developed an extensive multi-parameter spectral flow cytometry panel to phenotype hematopoietic stem and multipotent progenitor cells (HSC/MPPs) throughout development. In this study we then employ this panel to comprehensively profile the HSC compartment in the human fetal liver (FL), which is endowed with superior engraftment potential compared to postnatal sources. Spectral cytometry lends an improved resolution of marker expression to our comprehensive approach, allowing to extract combinatorial expression signatures of several relevant HSC/MPP markers to precisely characterize the HSC/MPP fraction in a variety of tissues.

Click here to read the article.

Air-liquid interface

Type 2 alveolar epithelial cells (AT2s), facultative progenitor cells of the lung alveolus, play a vital role in the biology of the distal lung. In vitro model systems that incorporate human cells, recapitulate the biology of primary AT2s, and interface with the outside environment could serve as useful tools to elucidate functional characteristics of AT2s in homeostasis and disease. We and others recently adapted human induced pluripotent stem cell–derived AT2s (iAT2s) for air-liquid interface (ALI) culture. Here, we comprehensively characterize the effects of ALI culture on iAT2s and benchmark their transcriptional profile relative to both freshly sorted and cultured primary human fetal and adult AT2s…

Click here to read the article.

Welcome to CReM

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The Wilson lab is focused on two major aspects of regenerative medicine:

1) Developing gene therapy approaches for the study and treatment of lung diseases: The ability to manipulate gene expression in specified lung cell populations has both experimental and therapeutic potential for lung disease. By developing viral vectors that transduce specific lung cell types in vivo, we hope to minimize potential off-target effects while maximizing our ability to target diseased cell populations. We work with lentiviral and AAV vectors to overexpress or knockdown expression of genes important to disease pathogenesis in the lung.

2) Utilizing induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) to study human lung and liver diseases: The Wilson lab is interested in the application of patient-derived iPS cells for the study of lung and liver diseases, such as alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD).

The Hawkins Lab is interested in how the human lung develops and responds to injury to better understand human lung disease. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) offer a unique opportunity to model human lung disease and bridge the gap between research in animal models and humans.

Using this iPSC platform, we are focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms that control human lung development. We hope to apply this knowledge to advance our understanding of and develop precision medicine approaches for lung disease.

The Murphy laboratory is composed of dynamic and passionate researchers who utilize multiple stem cell-based platforms to answer basic biological questions and combat disease. Central directions of the laboratory include: developmental hematopoiesis, the modeling of blood-borne disease, and discovery and therapeutic intervention in sickle cell disease, amyloidosis, and aging.

The Murphy Lab has pioneered: The world’s largest sickle cell disease-specific iPSC library and platforms and protocols that can used to recapitulate hematopoietic ontogeny and to develop and validate novel therapeutic strategies for the disease; The successful modeling of a protein folding disorder called familial amyloidosis demonstrating the ability to model a long-term, complex, multisystem disease in a relatively short time, using lineage-specified cells (hepatic, cardiac and neuronal) derived from patient-specific stem cells; The first iPSC library created from subjects with exceptional longevity (centenarians) that serves as an unlimited resource of biomaterials to fuel the study of aging and the development of novel therapeutics for aging-related disease.

www.murphylaboratory.com

@DRGJMurphy

The Serrano Lab studies neurodevelopment and cardiovascular development in the context of rare multi-systemic disorders originated by pathogenic variants in epigenetic modifiers like KMT2D.  

We aim to identify shared molecular and cellular mechanisms driving cardiovascular and brain development with particular interest in cell differentiation, migration, and cell cycle progression.  

Our lab combines rare disease modeling in zebrafish together with cardiovascular and neurobiology techniques and human iPSC-derived brain organoids and endothelial cells.  

We believe that a patient-forward focus to our projects will help us to get better understanding of disease mechanisms through basic science research. To this end, we are active in the collaborative community among field experts and rare disease patient-advocacy groups who drive our research program to identify therapeutic targets in patient-specific iPS cells. 

The Mostoslavsky Lab is a basic science laboratory in the Section of Gastroenterology in the Department of Medicine at Boston University.

Our goal is to advance our understanding of stem cell biology with a focus on their genetic manipulation via gene transfer and their potential use for stem cell-based therapy.

The Mostoslavsky’s Lab designed and constructed the STEMCCA vector for the generation of iPS cells, a tool that has become the industry standard for nuclear reprogramming. Project areas in the lab focuses on the use of different stem cell populations, including embryonic stem cells, induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells, hematopoietic stem cells and intestinal stem cells and their genetic manipulation by lentiviral vectors.

Our laboratory have already established a large library of disease-specific iPS cells with a particular interest in utilizing iPS cells to model diseases of the liver, the gastrointestinal tract, prion-mediated neurodegenerative diseases and immune-based inflammatory conditions, using iPSC-derived microglia, macrophages and T/NK cells.

The Gouon-Evans lab investigates cellular and molecular mechanisms driving liver development, regeneration and cancer. We specifically interrogate the role of progenitor/stem cells and how they share similar molecular signature and functions during these 3 processes.

Our innovative tools include: 1) directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (PSC) to generate in vitro liver progenitors and their derivative hepatocytes, the main functional cell type of the liver, 2) mouse models with lineage tracing strategy to track in vivo the fate of progenitor cells, 3) PSC derivative cell transplantation into mouse models with damaged livers as cell therapy for liver diseases, 3) dissection of liver cancer specimens from patients to identify and define the impact of specific cancer stem cells in liver oncogenesis.

Projects in the Gouon-Evans lab will lead to a better understanding of the liver development, to the establishment of multi-modular approaches for improving liver regeneration with PSC derivatives, and will reveal the impact of specific cancer stem cells as a target for diagnosis and therapy in liver oncogenesis.