Information about a piece of news titled Rune Bruhn Jakobsen defends his PhD thesis on stems cells in cartilage repair
Rune Bruhn Jakobsen defends his PhD thesis on stems cells in cartilage repair
Intoduction
Monday June 16, MD Rune B Jakobsen will defend his PhD thesis on "Mesenchymal stem cells in cartilage repair. Studies of chondrogenesis in vitro and in vivo».
In total, the thesis and the included 4 papers constitute a valuable piece to the puzzle of understanding stem cells and cartilage biology.
In his doctoral thesis, Rune B. Jakobsen (picture) studied stem cells from bone marrow and adipose tissue with the aim of using them in the treatment of injuries to articular cartilage.
Articular cartilage is typically injured in accidents or in sports trauma and may lead to severe symptoms and progress into osteoarthritis.
Dr. Jakobsen and colleagues have studied how stem cells are differentiated to chondrocytes in the laboratory and in animal experiments in rabbits.
The first paper´s results revealed that mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow were more easily differentiated into chondrocytes than stem cells from adipose tissue, expressing higher levels of molecules specific to articular cartilage.
In the second paper, mesenchymal stem cells were transplanted in a hyaluronic acid scaffold into defects in the knees of rabbits. This did not lead to better filling of the defect, but a trend towards better quality of the repair tissue in the cell-loaded scaffolds was found.
MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNA molecules that regulate gene activity. In the third paper, the microRNA profiles of stem cells differentiating to chondrocytes were compared to the profile of chondrocytes.
The role of microRNA-140 was studied in more detail and found to significantly impact on chondrogenic differentiation. RALA, a molecule, which has not previously been linked to chondrogenesis, was identifed as a novel target of microRNA-140.
In the fourth paper, a large number of different combinations of growth factors used to differentiate stem cells were studied. None of the existing combinations were found to be optimal. However, the high-throughput gene expression assay and the experimental setup used may be expanded to larger screening experiments aimed at identifying novel and better combinations of growth factors.
As mentioned above, this PhD thesis constitute a valuable piece to the puzzle of understanding stem cells and cartilage biology.
Professor Jan E Brinchmann served as main supervisor for Rune B Jakobsen.
Read more about Rune´s projects.
Program for June 16 (Runde auditorium (R-105), Domus Medica tilbygg, Sognsvannsveien 9, Oslo University Hospital)
10:15 - 11:00 Trial lecture "Treatment options after cartilage injuries in the young adult”
13:15 - 16:00 PhD defense
Dissertation committee
1. opponent: Professor Sally Roberts, Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital, Shropshire, UK
2. opponent: Associate Professor Lise Charlotte Berg, Københavns Universitet, Danmark
Chair: Professor Jan Erik Madsen, Institue for clinical medicine, Oslo University Hospital
Head of dissertation committee: Professor emeritus Gunnar Nicolaysen, Institutt for medisinske basalfag, Oslo University Hospital
Welcome!
Trial lecture and PhD defense will be presented in English.