Tissue Repair Postgraduate Training Programme

Tissue Repair student Margarita Basi co-author on mast cell generation paper

Tissue Repair student Margarita Basi co-author of paper by the Dzierzak lab about stem cell derived mast cells.

Dzierzak et al Stem Cell Reports 2018 schematic

Tissue Repair student Margarita Basi, who did a rotation project in the lab of Prof Elaine Dzierzak at the MRC Centre for Inflammation Research, is a co-author on a paper about mast cell generation.

Mast cells are tissue-resident immune cells. Their overgrowth/overactivation results in a range of common distressing, sometimes life-threatening disorders, including asthma, psoriasis, anaphylaxis, and mastocytosis. Currently, drug discovery is hampered by the lack of adequate models.

Prof Dzierzak and colleagues report a method for the robust production of mast cells from pluripotent stem cells. The method is applicable for rapid human mast cell generation, and could enable the production of sufficient numbers of physiologically relevant human mast cells from patient induced PSCs for the study of mast cell-associated disorders and drug discovery.

The paper can be accessed via the weblink below.

Kauts ML et al, Rapid mast cell generation from Gata2 reporter pluripotent stem cells. Stem Cell report 2018 Aug.