Erhard Hofer - Medical University of Vienna
(Coordinator and Sub-project 3)
Department of Vascular Biology and Thrombosis Research
Vienna Competence Center
Medical University of Vienna
Lazarettgasse 19
1090 Vienna, Austria
Phone: +43-1-40160-33111
FAX: +43-1-40160-933100
E-mail address: erhard.hofer@meduniwien.ac.at
Website: http://homepage.univie.ac.at/erhard.hofer/
Medical University of Vienna: www.meduniwien.ac.at
Cord blood contains immature stem/progenitor cells with high proliferative and differentiation capabilities. In older patients the use of cord blood progenitors may therefore be an advantage when attempting to reconstitute vascularization and damaged myocardium. Several stem/progenitor cells have been described from cord blood, circulating endothelial progenitors (CEP), CD133+ stem cells and CD45- unrestricted somatic stem cells (USSC). CD133+ cells and USSC have been shown to enhance function and repair of infarcted myocardium.
We have recently studied CEP and CD133+ cells from cord blood and delineated factors specifically expressed in progenitors of the endothelial lineage. Based on this, one focus in this project will be to improve and further develop in vitro differentiation protocols for CD133+ and USCC from cord blood. Cells in different stages of differentiation will be phenotyped by FACS analysis and subjected to gene profiling. Generally this lab will serve as a platform to coordinate all micoarray analysis to be performed on the different cell types available in this consortium. We will select potential master regulators, ligand/receptor pairs and transcription factors, which could be used to modulate differentiation.