Fabrizio Gelain and co-workers have developed a biocompatible scaffold which is capable of encouraging the regeneration of neural precursor cells derived from neural stem cell in mice. The regeneration of nerve tissue after spinal injury is important but difficult to achieve. The groups reports a promising strategy for neural cell regeneration and they suggest that the approach may have wider applications in other areas of tissue engineering.
One of the stunning images of the mouse neurons they studied has been selected to feature in Chemistry World‘s Chemistry through the lens feature.
Zeiss Apotome microscopy showing a highly organised network of beta-tubulin positive (green) murine neurons, GFAP (red) astrocytes and nuclei marked with DAPI (blue).
Read this exciting research paper in full today:
New bioactive motifs and their use in functionalized self-assembling peptides for NSC differentiation and neural tissue engineering
F. Gelain , D. Cigognini , A. Caprini , D. Silva , B. Colleoni , M. Donegá , S. Antonini , B. E. Cohen and A. Vescovi
DOI: 10.1039/C2NR30220A
