Award details

Haematopoietic stem/progenitor cells in health and disease

Reference	REI20499
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Alexander Markham
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Professor Constanze Bonifer, Professor Simon Carding, Dr Patricia Coletta, Dr Erika De Wynter
Institution	University of Leeds
Department	School of Medicine
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	39,538
Status	Completed
Type	Research Grant
Start date	01/02/2004
End date	31/01/2005
Duration	12 months

Abstract

Stem cell research is an area of great current excitement and a strategic priority area for BBSRC, as well as other Research Councils, the Wellcome Trust and other medical research charities. Although efforts to characterise the stem cell compartment of a variety of tissues are underway, research into haematopoietic stem/progenitor cells remain at the forefront. This is because tissue is relatively accessible and available (including in man) and because the pluripotency of cell lineages purified from bone marrow, cord blood or from peripheral blood after mobilisation can be assayed relatively straightforwardly. This involves a combination of in vitro (CFU) assays and in vitro transplantation/haematopoietic reconstitution experiments. The latter can be performed in immunodeficient strains of mice (e.g. NOD/SCID) or after marrow ablation by irradiation. This application requests the equipment to perform such irradiation to Home Office Approved Standards. As well as whole animal irradiation, irradiation of cell lines to act as feeder layers in culture systems is an essential element of routine stem cell research. Mesenchymal cell feeder layers may be vital in maintaining the pluripotency of their corresponding stem cell populations and in driving aspects of their differentiation into more disparate cell types. This has major implications in the context of potential tissue repair applications. Although we have been able to conduct research in this field to date by collaboration with other groups (primarily overseas) who have irradiation facilities, our work is very severely constrained and curtailed for want of the basic irradiation capability requested therein. The equipment would be made freely available to all other interested parties. This will hopefully have the effect of stimulating stem cell research through West Yorkshire and across the North of England.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Genes & Developmental Biology (GDB)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	Research Equipment Initiative 2003 (RE2) [2003]
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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