Applied Stem Cell Technologies

Visual impairment and blindness are a great threat to the life quality of an estimated 280 million people and a great burden for healthcare all over the world. Besides many retinal diseases, macular diseases like age-related macular degeneration (AMD) are the main cause of visual impairment in elderly people. Even though millions of people are affected little is known of the underlying disease mechanisms and therefore the treatment provided is not effective and no cure is in reach. To better understand retinal diseases more suitable human in vitro models are needed. The Eye-on-chip team is working towards more physiological novel human cell-based in vitro models of the human retina. 

The gut-brain axis (GBA) is a bi-directional communication system that connects the central nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract. The functioning of the GBA is also significantly affected by the bacteria in the intestine, which form the gut microbiome. Dysregulation of the gut-brain axis is implicated in a large number of neurodegenerative diseases and conditions. For an improved fundamental understanding of the microbiome-gut-brain axis and its functioning in health and disease, we are recreating the GBA using pluripotent stem cells (PSCs). To model the microbiome, we will introduce intestine-specific bacterial strains to the multi-organ culture on-chip.  

CRISPR/Cas is a state-of-the-art genome editing technology.
At AST, we use CRISPR to generate fluorescent reporter lines and disease lines harboring mutations associated with inherited disease.

Organ-on-chip models to recapitulate human (patho)-physiology.
At AST, we develop and apply organ-on-chip technology to study the structure and function of a variety of human organs.

3D Tissue engineering allows us to more closely mimic the in vivo situation.
At AST, we use different models for generating surrogates of human tissues for drug testing or disease modeling.