​NTU Scientists find easier way to harvest healing factors from adult stem cells in the lab

A multi-disciplinary NTU team comprising Asst/Prof Dalton Tay (MSE/SBS), A/P Andrew Tan (LKC/SBS) and A/P Newman Sze (SBS) have found that growing mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) on hydrogel, which is almost as soft as muscle and fat tissue, significantly increased the secretion of healing factors (secretome) via a novel mechanotransduction process.

The secretome can be easily harvested and when applied to wounds of mice, wound closure was accelerated by ~10-20%. Additionally, application of the engineered secretome improved blood vessel formation by up to 60% in a chicken egg (chorioallantoic) membrane model relative to the untreated control.   

The team believes that using materials’ stiffness to improve the therapeutic potential of MSCs secretome could be useful in the development of advanced stem cell culture materials for regenerative medicine. Such a development would be advantageous to the biopharmaceutical companies that are currently exploring the development of new MSCs-based cell-free therapies for the treatment of chronic wounds and vascular diseases in human.