Browsing by Author "Nasr, Babak"

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    Generation of Vestibular Tissue-Like Organoids From Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Using the Rotary Cell Culture System
    (Frontiers, 2019-03) Mattei, Cristiana; Lim, Rebecca; Drury, Hannah; Nasr, Babak; Li, Zihui; Tadros, Melissa; D'Abaco, Giovanna; Stok, Kathyrn; Nayagam, Bryony; Dottori, Mirella
    Hair cells are specialized mechanosensitive cells responsible for mediating balance and hearing within the inner ear. In mammals, hair cells are limited in number and do not regenerate. Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) provide a valuable source for deriving human hair cells to study their development and design therapies to treat and/or prevent their degeneration. In this study we used a dynamic 3D Rotary Cell Culture System (RCCS) for deriving inner ear organoids from hPSCs. We show RCCS-derived organoids recapitulate stages of inner ear development and give rise to an enriched population of hair cells displaying vestibular-like morphological and physiological phenotypes, which resemble developing human fetal inner ear hair cells as well as the presence of accessory otoconia-like structures. These results show that hPSC-derived organoids can generate complex inner ear structural features and be a resource to study inner ear development.
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    Graphene foam as a biocompatible scaffold for culturing human neurons
    (Royal Society Open Science, 2018-04) D'Abaco, Giovanna; Mattei, Cristiana; Nasr, Babak; Hudson, Emma; Alshawaf, Abdullah; Chana, Gursharan; Everall, Ian; Nayagam, Bryony; Dottori, Mirella; Skafidas, Efstratios
    In this study, we explore the use of electrically active graphene foam as a scaffold for the culture of human-derived neurons. Human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived cortical neurons fated as either glutamatergic or GABAergic neuronal phenotypes were cultured on graphene foam. We show that graphene foam is biocompatible for the culture of human neurons, capable of supporting cell viability and differentiation of hESC-derived cortical neurons. Based on the findings, we propose that graphene foam represents a suitable scaffold for engineering neuronal tissue and warrants further investigation as a model for understanding neuronal maturation, function and circuit formation.