IBioE lunchtime seminar

Location: 

CR6, Hudson Beare

Date: 

Wednesday, December 10, 2014 - 12:45 to 14:00

The talk today will be given by PhD student Wesam Gamal. Pizza will be available at 12.45, and the talk will start at 1pm.

Wesam Gamal will present on:

Real-time quantitative impedance monitoring of electrically driven hiPSC-RPE migration in age-related macular degeneration

Abstract: 
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in the developed world with a need to better understand disease mechanisms and to test new treatments for its currently incurable forms. 

To get a deeper insight into the disease, a tissue-on-a-chip AMD disease model was developed. The platform was based on human induced pluripotent stem cells technology (hiPSC) and electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS). Retinal pigment epithelium cells (RPE) generated from a patient with an inherited macular degeneration and from healthy unaffected siblings were used to test the model platform on which a reproducible electrical wounding assay was conducted to mimic RPE loss in AMD. Significant differences in migration rates were found between case and control cell lines. The tissue-on-a-chip was then used to address a series of questions concerning the role of RPE adhesion in repair pointing towards potential therapeutic strategies. 

Electrical Stimulation (ES) has been used at the United States since 2002 to treat chronic wounds that do not respond to regular treatments. Generally, ES tries to imitate the effect of electrical fields that occur in biological tissues as a result of ionic current flow. In healthy tissues, the presence of a wound sets up a lateral potential gradient that acts as a cue for guiding the migration of cells into the wound during healing. However, this ability might be compromised in degenerative diseases including AMD.                                                      

The effects of an externally applied electrical field (EF) on the migration of immortalized RPE cells were investigated. Interestingly, RPE cells changed their alignment and migrated in a direction perpendicular to that of the applied EF. Our preliminary studies showed that electrical stimulation could help direct healthy cells into wounded areas of the RPE cell layer with the potential to be an alternative therapy for the treatment of RPE degeneration in AMD. 

Event Contact Name: 

Dr Pankaj

Event Contact Email: