One of the opportunities academia offers faculty is the chance to enhance one’s expertise and expand the institutions capabilities through a sabbatical leave. While sabbatical leaves are somewhat unique to academia, the need for any institution or business to engage in efforts to continually renew expertise is not unique. Faculty choose academic institutions because of their interests in education, but at a research university there is a complementary responsibility to assure that the educational process is supported by a personal intellectual curiosity that stretches from the bench to the classroom.
Sabbatical leaves provide faculty members a brief opportunity to step out of the frenzy that accompanies our normal triad of responsibilities in teaching, research, and service. A chance to focus on one’s passion for scholarship rewards the institution many fold when faculty return with renewed enthusiasm and expertise.
Dr. Chrissa Kioussi is currently on sabbatical leave at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. You may be interested to read how she is expanding her expertise this year and how it will enhance the College of Pharmacy on her return.
Chrissa Kioussi, PhD
Karolinska Institute, Department of Neuroscience, Linnaeus Center In Developmental Biology For Regenerative Medicine, Stockholm, Sweden
Organ Formation and Repair
The hope of creating replacement body parts for ailing and aging humans has created the field of regenerative medicine. The basic plan is to culture human stem cells in such a way that they grow into the replacement body parts. Until two years ago, human stem cells cultures could only be made from aborted human embryos. Replacement parts generated from such stem cells would therefore consist of cells of a different individual than the patient, and would therefore be rejected during surgical grafting, just as traditional organ transplants are today. Just two years ago it become possible to induce human stem cells from adult tissue by molecular manipulations. These induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can be created from skin biopsies of each patient so that the replacement body parts generated from them would be created from the patient’s own cells, and would therefore not be rejected upon surgical grafting. The iPS cells are therefore preferable to stem cells cultured from aborted human embryos.
The availability of iPS cells has made ethical discussions regarding the source of human stem cells obsolete and led to a renewed focus on how to culture these stem cells to make them turn into particular replacement parts. The basic plan is to mimic, in culture, the way it is done normally in embryos.
The normal process of creating cell types and organs in embryos is studied in mice, because it cannot be studied in humans. Fortunately, the most essential features of the process appear to be nearly identical in different mammals. For example if one learns how pancreatic islet cells are normally made in mouse embryos, then one can develop techniques to culture them from human iPS cells. Such replacement islet cells could be transplanted into diabetic patients and alleviate their need for daily insulin injections.
My laboratory has focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms and signals that embryos normally use to make cardiac and skeletal muscle. We would like to apply our understanding to develop iPS cultures that create replacement parts to help cure muscular dystrophies, muscle injuries, and aged or diseased hearts. We also collaborate with other groups on campus to understand the molecular mechanisms by which nerve cells in the spinal cord, cells of the tooth rudiments, and T-cells are made in embryos.
Similarly, we would like to create replacement neurons, teeth, and T-cells, to help cure spinal cord injuries, dental problems, and leukemias, respectively.
The Hermannson lab at the Karolinska Institute is specialized in the culture of stem cells. I am using my sabbatical to reinvigorate my previous experience with stem cells, become directly exposed to advances in this field in the European laboratories, and bring this knowledge back to OSU. I have been introduced to tissue culture systems that allow the isolation and growth of rodent neuronal cells that behave like stem cells. These cells are pluripotent because they can differentiate into different cell types, depending on the environmental cues they receive and the genes they express. I am performing high-risk and expensive experiments in a well-equipped scientific environment using modern techniques.
Daily meetings, discussions and interactions with faculty, post-docs and students with the same research interests and enthusiasm have been beneficial to formulate my thoughts and set up goals. It has been a welcome break from administrative chores and teaching obligations that normally divide my time on a daily basis. The focus on research is almost like being a post-doc again, except that there are now my two daughters to attend to. I look forward to returning to the College later this summer and bringing these new perspectives to enhance our research and educational missions.
-Story and photo courtesy of Dr. Chrissa Kioussi