Abstract

Who has never heard of pluripotent stem cells and their intriguing therapeutic promises? Twenty years after their first derivation from embryos and the Nobel awarded discovery of somatic tissue reprogramming along the way that marked the beginning of the iPSC era, these tales are now excitingly close to meet clinical reality and fulfil the objectives of regenerative medicine.

Some of the major challenges still to be tackled for iPSC therapy to reach the bedside on a larger scale include immuno-compatibility, terminal tissue maturation in vitro and cost-effective industrial scale-up.

We propose to give an overview of these challenges and some potential solutions by presenting our current research on lab-grown cardiac, muscle cells, neuronal and blood cells we are aiming to produce from human pluripotent stem cells for clinical applications.