Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello,

I was interested in competing in Intel ISEF and the local science fairs that occur before it. The project of creating a vital organ using stem cells caught my eye but I was wondering what modifications I could make to the project to make it competitive at the level I was hoping. Thanks for the help in advance!

This could be a pretty massive project and what you choose to do is going to depend on what resources you have access to and what your skill level is in mammalian cell culture.

If you plan to work with human cells then you will need to work in a lab with a Biosafety Level 2 containment facility and biohazardous waste disposal. A university medical research lab would be a good choice.

What organ were you thinking of trying to replicate with stem cells? You can use human cells but stem cells are much easier to obtain from mouse bone marrow. Here is one method for doing this, but there are many others:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19131962

There are many published research studies using mouse stem cells to recreate functional tissue and you can probably find what you are interested in. The fun part would come later after you trigger the differentiation of the stem cells into something else like smooth muscle, cartilage or bone. The activated cells can also be transplanted into a mouse to test whether they can function as the organ they are supposed to form.

I'm sure you will have more questions.

Sybee