CSTEC@UTAH

Cell Sheet Tissue Engineering Center @ The University of Utah

OUR MISSION

The Cell Sheet Tissue Engineering Center at the University of Utah (CSTEC@Utah) was established in 2015 by Dr. Teruo Okano and Dr. David Grainger. This center represents the ongoing collaboration between the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah and the Tokyo Women's Medical University and Waseda University Joint Institute of Advanced Biomedical Sciences (TWIns) in Tokyo, Japan. 

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The goal of this collaborative center is to develop new allogeneic off-the-shelf cell sheet regenerative approaches in Utah for first-in-human trials and drive commercialization as a Center of Excellence to address large unmet medical needs in regenerative medicine. 

​Current Applications:

  • Cartilage 

  • Liver

  • Kidney 

  • Uterus

  • Salivary Gland

Cell sheet technology uses poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PIPAAm)-grafted temperature-responsive culture dishes that allow cells to spontaneously detach as confluent sheets without the damaging enzymes necessary for standard cell harvest. These cell sheets maintain the natural extracellular matrix (ECM), cell-cell junctions, and surface proteins that are broken or damaged during traditional enzymatic detachment methods and can spontaneously adhere when transplanted, ensuring localization and retention of cells at the transplantation site and negating the need for scaffold support materials. Cell sheet technology is widely applicable and has shown clinical success in regenerating a variety of tissues in vivo.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED WORK

Stable Cell Adhesion Affects Mesenchymal Stem Cell Sheet Fabrication: Effects of FBS and HPL

Kim K, Thorp H, Bou-Ghannam S, Grainger DW, Okano T. J Tissue Eng Regen M. (2020) (in press)

Rat Mesenchymal Stromal Cell Sheets Suppress Renal Fibrosis Via Microvascular Protection

Imafuku A, Oka M, Miyabe Y, Sekiya S, Nitta K, Shimizu T. Stem Cells Transl Med (2019) 8:1330.

Phenotypic Traits of Mesenchymal Stem Cell Sheets Fabricated by Temperature-responsive Cell Culture Plate: Structural Characteristics of MSC Sheets

Nakao M, Kim K, Nagase K, Grainger DW, Kanazawa H, Okano T. Stem Cell Red Ther (2019) 10(1): 353

RESEARCH

PUBLICATION RANKED AMONG TOP 100 MOLECULAR BIOLOGY REFERENCES IN SCIENTIFIC REPORTS

CONTACT US

Skaggs Research Institute
(College of Pharmacy, Health Sciences campus),
Building 581, 
30 S 2000 E, Room 2800,
Salt Lake City, UT 84112-5820

 

CELL SHEET TISSUE ENGINEERING CENTER @ THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

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