Pritzker Lecture: Dr. Martin L. Yarmush - New Approaches to Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy

Illinois Institute of Technology's Pritzker Institute of Biomedical Science and Engineering will host the Robert A. Pritzker Distinguished Lecture featuring Martin Yarmush, MD, Ph.D., Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Rutgers School of Engineering on April 24, 2015. The lecture topic will be New Approaches to Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy.

Earn Engineering Themes Credit in Health for attending this lecture.

Abstract

Recently there has been a paradigm shift in what is considered the therapeutic promise of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in diseases of vital organs. Originally, research focused on MSCs as a source of regenerative cells by differentiating transplanted cells into lost cell types. Trophic modulation of inflammation, cell death, fibrosis, and tissue repair are primary mechanisms of MSC therapy. This has been clarified in studies where delivering growth factors, cytokines, and other signaling molecules secreted by MSCs is often sufficient to obtain therapeutic effects. In this presentation, examples of MSC therapy in disease models of vital organs using models of acute liver failure, acute renal injury, and spinal cord injury will be described.