CSI: Cell science investigators

By the end of this lesson, you should…

Know how stem cell research is useful for medicine

Know about a disease that stem cells might help

Know what stem cell therapies are available now

What we’re going to do today

1. Learn about the disease multiple sclerosis (MS)

2. In groups:- Research what goes wrong in MS- Do an experiment to look for new medicines

3. Hear about some stem cell therapies

A reminder about stem cells

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How can stem cells help with diseases?

Grow and multiply stem cells in the lab

Make lots of specialized cells

Study the cells to learn more about MS

Find or testnew medicines

Put new cells into patients?

What is multiple sclerosis?

Pins and needles

Fatigue (Tiredness)

Mood swings

Forgetfulness

Hearing problems

Dizziness

Problems walking

Blurred vision

What is multiple sclerosis?

Over 400,000 people in the European Union 10,500 people in Scotland Usually starts at about 20 or 30 years old

Who?

No-one knows the cause Not passed on from parents to children

Why?

Medicines to help with symptoms No cure

Treatments

What does a nerve cell do?

Signals travel fast!

Some of your nerves carry signals at 70 to 100 metres per second

That’s as fast as a race car.

And more than 100 times faster than you can pass a message along a line!

A healthy nerve cell

Myelin(insulation)

Nerve fibre (axon)carries messages

Signal

What goes wrong in MS?

Your research challengeFind out what goes wrong with nerves in MS:

•Look at the diagrams

•Write down what has gone wrong with some of the nerves

•Look at the real nerves. Have they got MS?

Healthy nerve

What goes wrong in MS?

Damaged myelinPoor insulation

Messages slow down or get lost

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Healthy nerve

How can stem cells help with MS?

The problem

Damaged nerves

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Remember…

How can stem cells help with MS?

Grow stem cells in the lab

Make lots of nerve cells to study and test

Study the cells to learn more about MS

Find or testnew medicines

Put new cells into patients?

Where can we get the stem cells from?

There are stem cells in our bodies

surface of the eye brain andnervous system

muscles intestines (gut)

bone marrow

skin

Any volunteers?

embryonic stem cells

skin

Embyronic stem cells can make any cells

nerve

muscle

How can we make nerve cells?

Get embryonic stem cells

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Grow manystem cells

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Change them into nerve stem cells

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Many nerve cells to study and test

So we can make nerve cells: what next?

Grow stem cells in the lab

Make lots of nerve cells to study and test

Find or testnew medicines

Study the cells to learn more about MS

Put new cells into patients?

Using cells to look for new medicines

Substances to test

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Cell samples

Your research challenge•Plan a drug screening experiment

•Make sure it is a fair test

•Carry out your experiment

•Record your results

Which substance might be a useful medicine?

Choose one to go for more research

ResultsTest substance

Colour of cells after adding

A Blue/green

B Purple (no change)

C Green

D Red

E Blue/Green

Water Purple (no change)

D should go for further research

Making cells for patients

Grow stem cells in the lab

Make lots of nerve cells to study and test

Find or testnew medicines

Study the cells to learn more about MS

Put new cells into patients?

Cell therapies today

Bone marrow transplants for blood diseases

Skin graftsfor very bad burns

Grow a new corneafor damaged eyes

What we’ve learnt today

New medicines

Study and understand

Cells for patients?

3 ways to use stem cells Treating diseases today

No treatments for MS from stem cell research yet

Stem cells can treat:•Blood diseases•Burns•Some eye damage

Thanks for all your work!

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Funders: The development of CSI: Cell science investigators was funded by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme through EuroStemCell.

Authors: CSI: Cell science investigators was created and developed by Emma Kemp and Ian Chambers, MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh.

Acknowledgements: Shona Reid, her colleagues and students at the James Young High School, Livingston, Scotland, participated in pilots and offered helpful advice and feedback. Gianvito Martino of the Division of Neuroscience, San Raffaele Hospital, Milan reviewed information on the slides about multiple sclerosis.

Picture credits: Details provided on the following slide.

Licensing: This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA

Acknowledgements and licensing

• Slide 6: ear by David Benbennick; sight chart by EuroStemCell; all other images courtesy of the Multiple Sclerosis Society

• Slide 7: silhouette of head by Hannes Grobe

• Slide 8: line of people ©iStockphoto.com/danleap

• Slide 9: car by M. Trischler

• Slide 17: cell images by Dr Steve Pollard of UCL Cancer Institute, London

• Slide 22: blood cells by Anne Weston/Wellcome Images; skin graft from Yann Barrandon, previously published in Ronfard et al., TRANSPLANTATION 2000; eye repair photograph reproduced with permission from Massachusetts Medical Society and taken from Rama et al, Limbal Stem-Cell Therapy and Long-Term Corneal Regeneration, N Engl J Med, 2010, 363:147-55, doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa0905955

• Slide 23: nerve image reproduced with permission from Bruce D. Trapp, Ph.D., John Peterson, B.S., Richard M. Ransohoff, M.D., Richard Rudick, M.D., Sverre Mörk, M.D., Ph.D., and Lars Bö, M.D. Axonal Transection in the Lesions of Multiple Sclerosis, N Engl J Med 1998; 338:278-285: http://www.nejm.org/toc/nejm/338/5/

• Cartoon diagrams throughout: created by Christele Gonneau and Emma Kemp.

Images used in other components of CSI: Cell science investigators are accredited where the image appears.

Picture credits