Does tissue niche influence differentiation and growth of mesenchymal stem cells?
*SCHOLARSHIP FILLED* Regenerative medicine, an interdisciplinary field of research focuses on the repair and replacement of tissues. It uses a combination of approaches including stem cell transplantation and tissue engineering. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are candidate cell types potentially useful for tissue repair. Generally MSCs are isolated from bone marrow but we have shown that MSC-like cells can be isolated from olfactory mucosal biopsies. Since these cells are isolated from different tissue niches it is not known if they would have identical differentiation properties. Controlling MSC differentiation is crucial for their potential use in regenerative medicine and recent advances in biomaterials has shown that chemistry, stiffness and topography can influence differentiation of stem cells. We plan to compare the differentiation potential of bone marrow MSCs to olfactory mucosa MSCs when plated on hydrogels designed to range from a soft to stiff consistency and also low to high
