Partner Description
The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) is a large university teaching hospital in which highly specialized patient care is linked to basic and clinical research. Research in the Department of Anatomy and Embryology at LUMC is focused on cardiovascular development and disease models based on human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs)(groups Dr. Valeria Orlova and Prof. Christine Mummery). Immediate interests are on developing biophysical techniques for characterization and functional analysis of cardiovascular cells from hPSC with the ultimate aim of understanding underlying disease mechanisms and drugs for treatment through bioassays. In addition, over several past years, we have developed efficient protocols to differentiate different sub-types of endothelial cells (ECs), pericytes (PCs), vascular smooth muscle cells (vSMCs), as well as inflammatory cells, such as monocytes and macrophages. We aim to advance cardiovascular disease models based on patient derived hiPSC to allow drug repurposing screens and define pathways to target for therapy. Our priorities are hiPSC vascular disease models, -omics and single cell approaches to identifying disease pathways, microphysiological systems (MPS) to mimic and quantify healthy and disease phenotypes.
Role within Project
- Development of novel immunocompetent in-vitro tissue models with focus on MPS, especially organ-on-chip platforms
- Differentiation of pluripotent stem cells to cardiomyocytes, vascular cells and monocytes/macrophages
- Generation and characterization of patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells
- Genetic engineering of hPSCsDevelopment of human (cardio) vascular disease models with an inflammatory cell component
- These technologies will be implemented in imSAVAR with view to including functional inflammatory cells with different tissue identities derived from (patient) hiPSCs