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RE: What are good labs for a Developmental Biology Course?

in #stemq5 years ago (edited)

You can design experiments with ESC and iPSC cell lines. Since cell culture work is easy, I suggest that you look up some differentiation protocols and differentiate your stem cells into a Bering Cardiomyocyte, neurons, skin cells etc. Setting up organotypic cultures esp for skin would be cool as well. If you have mice available, you can also do embryonic development studies. For instance - is differentiation of stem cells cell autonomous or dependent on niche. You can inject ESC at difference embryonic and even adult animal niches and check for their states after few days. If mice is an issue work with Hydra or planarian. You can just cut those things to pieces and study the developmental Biology. Fruit fly is another options.

If you want to keep the experiments in in-vitro format, you can order some yamanaka factor plasmids, some crispr tool kits and study the molecular states of differentiated vs stem cells.

If you are more mathematically inclined, you can make students make morphogen diffusion models, and gene switch models on Matlab. Predict the patterning and see if you can recapitulate any real world examples.

If you have any questions regarding set up of any experiment, just write back. Will be happy to help.

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Wow, these ideas are fantastic I hadn't even considered a lot of them. I think the STEM cell lines are awesome and since @replichara had a similar idea I'll probably look into that first. In fact, just briefly googling this shows that Sigma has kits and protocols specifically for this kind of work. A bit pricey but super cool stuff.

The morphogen diffusion models seems like a great option if any experiments fall though as well, though I'm not sure if we have access to Matlab. I'll have to look into that.

I'll definitely let you know if I have any questions going through these options.

Incase you don't have access to matlab, you can simulate things in python as well. But matlab is much more easier imho.

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