| Talk title | Challenge and promise of human embryonic stem cell based therapy |
| Speaker | Prof. Yang XU Professor Sun Yat-sen University 8th Hospital in Shenzhen |
| Date & Time | 14 December 2018 (Fri) 02:30pm-03:30pm |
| Venue | Room G003, E12 Building (University of Macau) |
| Abstract | Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) can undergo unlimited self-renewal and retain the pluripotency to differentiate into all cell types in human body. Therefore, as a renewable source of various cell types, hESCs hold great promise for cell therapy of many currently incurable diseases. Significant progress has been achieved in establishing the conditions to differentiate hESCs into many lineages of biologically active cells. In addition, hESC-based cell therapy of spinal cord injury, macular degeneration and type 1 diabetes has entered clinical trials. Despite these promising progresses, one major challenge for developing hESC-based therapy is the allogeneic immune rejection of hESC-derived cells by the recipient. I will discuss the immunogenicity of human pluripotent stem cells and our effort to develop effective approaches to induce immune tolerance to hESC-derived allografts. |