LEARNING OUTCOMES

Analysis of stem cell biology, focusing on their differentiation and therapeutic potential (including somatic nuclear transfer and cloning).

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

This class will help students to develop knowledge and specific understanding and a strong foundation in stem cell biology and their therapeutic potentail. Lessons will be delivered from the Lecturer in English to help students develop their communicative skills.

By attending class and by studying on their own, students will be able to develop:

- detailed comprehension on specific functional and regenerative properties of different stem cell populations;

- specific knowledge on mechanisms controlling stem/progenitor cell activation (i.e. EMT transition), differentiation potential (i.e. therapeutic cloning and reprogramming) and paracrine secretion for intercellular communication;

- develop comprehensive know-how, while improving their learning and communication skills along with capacity of critical analysis on aspects mostly relevant for future translational medicine.

This course will also support students to further acquire and develop their communicative skills as presenting in English and discussing in front of class some original reserach articles during a journbal club activity to be perfomed as team of 2-3 students at the end of the course.

The laboratory activity will foster students' ability to engage into pratical cell biology research by practising techniques and protocols relevant to the main topics discussed in class (i.e. primary isolation of human stem cells versus differentiated somatic ones, isolation and charachterization of cell-secreted extracellular vesicles, immunofluorescence analyses, etc).

PREREQUISITES

Students are required to posses basic to proficient comptence in English, both as comprehensive and communicative skill. Validated knowledge on basic cell biology and on mechanisms of gene expression and regulation is also necessary.

TEACHING METHODS

Students are required to attend class for at least 75% of the scheduled lessons.

The module will include 36 hours of lecturing; each lecture will take place twice a week. A practical course of hands on in laboratory techniques will also be performed for a total of 32 hours within 8 days, in the afternoon (2-6pm), after lecturing will be concluded. During the laboratory activity, students will be supervised by the Lecturer with the assistance of young reserachers (with a PhD and/or Master of Science degree) with broad expertise on the specific topics.

Class will be managed as frontal lectures with Power Point notes. The main topics will be addressed during class by means of active discussion engaged by the Lecturer.

For this academic year 2020-2021 all the lectures will be held online via Microsoft Teams platform according to the scheduled timetable. Students will be contacted via e-mail to be given instructions to connect to the specific Teams channel to attend class.

Students can take advantage of online material (lectures power point notes) available on the AulaWeb website; such material must not be shared to a third party, neither posted online or made available on any social/sharing platform.

 Lecturer can be reached via email/phone to arrange specific 1-to-1 meeting for further assistance/explanation as needed.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Introduction on stem cell biology.

Embryonic stem cells: functional characterisation and their applications in preclinical research.

Adul stem cells: hematopoietic, neural and epithelial stem cells. Mesenchymal stromal stem cells: tissue origin and their regenerative potential.

Somatic nuclear transfer from amphibians to mammals. Therapeutic cloning.

Induced pluripotent stem cells and reprogramming. Pros and cons in preclinical research and their translational potential.

Fetal and perinatal stem cells: definition of their regenerative potential compared to embryonic and adult stem cells.

Phenotypic and functional characterisation of cancer stem cells.

EMT: Epithelial - Mesenchymal Transition in cell biology.

Tissue-specific adult progenitor cells within the cardiac tissue; an example of EMT in stem cell biology: the epicardium-derived progenitor cells (EPDC).

Tissue-specific adult progenitor cellswithin the skeletal muscle. 

Stem cells, DNA damage & ageing.

Intercellular communication part I: stem cells and paracrine effect in regenerative medicine

Intercellular communication part II: stem cell-secreted extracellular vesicles in regenerative medicine.

Regenerative medicine 2.0: de-differentiation, trans-differentiation and direct reprogramming.

Journal Club: Oral presentation from groups of students critically discussing assigned research articles related to the topics discussed during class.

Hands On Practice on Cell Biology Laboratory

Multipotent stem cell in vitro culture versus tissue-specific differentiated cell isolation. Isolation and assessment of protein concentration of stem cell secretome. Isolation and general characterisation. Of stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles. microRNA isolation from  circulating extracellular vesicle within blood samples.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lecturers will provided power point slides at the end of the class as available to be downloaded from the AulaWeb website, as supporting material, which must not be either disclosed to third or shared on line or posted on social media. Laboratory protocols will be also made available before the practical hands on course starts.

For the journal club activity, Lecturers will made available for students to choose some original research articles published on peer-reviewed international journals; students will work on them in groups of 2-3 people to deliver an oral presentation in order to critical discuss the chosen study in front of class.