| Eric Deutsch knows what
it’s like to work with rats. They’re not his colleagues, but subjects
in a study of human amniotic-fluid stem (AFS) cells. Deutsch, an
undergraduate Mechanical Engineering major at the Georgia Institute of
Technology and a participant in the Georgia Tech/Emory Center (GTEC)-initiated
Undergraduate Research Scholars program, played an important role in the
study of human AFS cells when he worked with researchers in Dr. Robert
Guldberg’s orthopaedic research lab at GTEC, an NSF Engineering Research
Center.
Deutsch worked with researchers
to study the bone and cartilage (osteogenic and chondrogenic) forming potential
of human AFS cells sourced from Dr. Tony Atala’s AFS cell lines at the
Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Deutsch was responsible
for the in vivo AFS studies—studies performed in a living organism.
During the study, AFS cells
were implanted ectopically in the nude rat model to determine the degree
to which mineralization would occur in vivo after varying lengths of pre-culture
in osteogenic conditions in vitro. Results indicated that only the
AFS cells that had differentiated in vitro into osteogenic cells and began
mineralization prior to implantation continued to mineralize in vivo.
The next phase of investigation
was selected for funding by the GTEC Industrial Partners as a “critical
models translational research” project in the fall of 2006. The new
seed grant will study the extent to which AFS cells contribute to mineralization
and bone repair in a nude rat functional defect (bone break) model.
Eric Deutsch will continue his work on this project as part of his BS/MS
program.
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