Monday, February 18, 2013
Room 207 (Hynes Convention Center)
Receiving an artificial organ is a major stress for the body. We have revealed a number of molecular and cellular events in patients after trachebronchial tranplantations with stem cell-seeded bioartificial scaffolds. In particular, we have noted transient epigenetic changes in the patients, specifically histone methylation events, that correlate with increased expression of factors associated with stem cell production and with increased fractions of progenitor cells in the blood. In this talk, I will give a background to the subject of epigenetics, the implications for stem cell-based transplantations of artificial organs that we are currently investigating, and discuss certain future perspectives of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.