75

“9.61x6.69” b2815 Tissue Engineering and Nanotheranostics

Chapter 4

Directed Differentiation

of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells

for Therapeutic Applications

Lauren N. Randolph, Evan B. Witmer and Xiaojun Lian*,†,‡

* Department of Biomedical Engineering

The Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences

Pennsylvania State University

University Park, PA 16802, USA

† Department of Biology

The Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences

Pennsylvania State University

University Park, PA 16802, USA

‡ [email protected]

Abstract: Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), including

human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells,

are a potentially inexhaustible supply of human cells because they

can be propagated indefinitely while still retaining the capacity to

differentiate into all somatic cell types. Hurdles facing utilization of

hPSCs in regenerative medicine include lack of reliable and efficient

methods to differentiate hPSCs into disease related cell lineages,

including neurons, cardiac muscle cells and pancreatic beta cells.