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Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine

principal investigator : Josep M. Canals jmcanals@ub.edu Department: Departament de Biologia Cel·lular, immunologia i Neurosciencies Center: Facultat de Medicina Institution: UB (Universitat de Barcelona), IDIBAPS Members: 10 Research lines: 1. - Studies of new transcription factors involved in the development of the striatum. Our group is interested in the characterization of new transcription factors involved in the development of neurons in the striatum, mainly projection neurons. We also want to characterize the mechanism of action of these factors in order to elucidate and modulate the development of these neurons. 2. - Differentiation of stem cells for cell replacement strategies in neurodegenerative diseases. Our interest is based on the use of intrinsic and extrinsic factors on the differentiation of embryonic or neural stem cells. Knowledge of endogenous development of striatal neurons provides the necessary information for these types of approaches. 3. - IPSC differentiation studies as a model for neurodegenerative diseases. The possibility of obtaining pluripotent stem cells from tissue of patients with neurodegenerative diseases has opened the possibility to study new models of these diseases. We are currently working on the characterization and differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSC) in patients with Huntington's disease and Parkinson's disease. Areas:  Development   Neuronal death   Glial cells   Medicina Regerenativa  Keywords: Neurodegeneration, Huntington, Stem cells, neural development, differenciation, regenerative medicine, iPSC, trophic factors, neuroprotection, synaptic plasticity Publications: 1: Martín-Ibáñez R, Crespo E, Esgleas M, Urban N, Wang B, Waclaw R, Georgopoulos K, Martínez S, Campbell K, Vicario-Abejón C, Alberch J, Chan S, Kastner P, Rubenstein JL, Canals JM. Helios transcription factor expression depends on Gsx2 and Dlx1and2 function in developing striatal matrix neurons. Stem Cells Dev. 2012 Aug 10;21(12):2239-51. doi: 10.1089/scd.2011.0607. Epub 2012 Jan 26. PubMed PMID: 22142223; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3411368.   2: Urbán N, Martín-Ibáñez R, Herranz C, Esgleas M, Crespo E, Pardo M, Crespo-Enríquez I, Méndez-Gómez HR, Waclaw R, Chatzi C, Alvarez S, Alvarez R, Duester G, Campbell K, de Lera AR, Vicario-Abejón C, Martinez S, Alberch J, Canals JM. Nolz1 promotes striatal neurogenesis through the regulation of retinoic acid signaling. Neural Dev. 2010 Aug 24;5:21. doi: 10.1186/1749-8104-5-21. PubMed PMID: 20735826; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2939507.   3: Martín-Ibáñez R, Crespo E, Urbán N, Sergent-Tanguy S, Herranz C, Jaumot M, Valiente M, Long JE, Pineda JR, Andreu C, Rubenstein JL, Marín O, Georgopoulos K, Mengod G, Fariñas I, Bachs O, Alberch J, Canals JM. Ikaros-1 couples cell cycle arrest of late striatal precursors with neurogenesis of enkephalinergic neurons. J Comp Neurol. 2010 Feb 1;518(3):329-51. doi: 10.1002/cne.22215. PubMed PMID: 19950118. Group Web site