Paula Garcia Belda

• PhD at University of Valencia

Mesenchymal stem cell therapy after stroke is a promising option investigated in animal models and clinical trials. The intravenous route is commonly used in clinical settings guarantying an adequate safety profile although low yields of engraftment. In this report, rats subjected to ischemic stroke were injected with adipose-derived stem cells (AD...

The cloning of green fluorescent protein (GFP) has opened a new arena of protein labeling, and has become a new alternative to existing markers or dyes. Main advantages are its stability and its fluorescent activity independent on the binding of other ligands or proteins. The use of GFP-tagged proteins has found multiple applications in molecular b...

Ependymal cells (E1/E2) and ciliated B1cells confer a unique pinwheel architecture to the ventricular surface of the subventricular zone (SVZ), and their cilia act as sensors to ventricular changes during development and aging. While several studies showed that forebrain demyelination reactivates the SVZ triggering proliferation, ectopic migration,...

The dermal Panniculus carnosus (PC) muscle is important for wound contraction in lower mammals and represents an interesting model of muscle regeneration due to its high cell turnover. The resident satellite cells (the bona fide muscle stem cells) remain poorly characterized. Here we analyzed PC satellite cells with regard to developmental origin a...

The cloning of green fl uorescent protein (GFP) has opened a new arena of protein labeling and has become a new alternative to existing markers or dyes. Main advantages are its stability and its fl uorescent activity independent on the binding of other ligands or proteins. The use of GFP-tagged proteins has found multiple applications in molecular...

Our group has recently derived skeletal muscle from dermis-derived cells, by using an extracellular matrix that recreates the myogenic niche. After one week of differentiation, we observed isolated, twitching myotubes followed by spontaneous contractions of the entire tissue-engineered muscle construct. In vitro engineered myofibers expressed canon...

The possibility of obtaining large numbers of cells with potential to become functional neurons implies a great advance in regenerative medicine. A source of cells for therapy is the subventricular zone (SVZ) where adult neural stem cells (NSCs) retain the ability to proliferate, self-renew, and differentiate into several mature cell types. The neu...

Skeletal muscle can be engineered by converting dermal precursors into muscle progenitors and differentiated myocytes. However, the efficiency of muscle development remains relatively low and it is currently unclear if this is due to poor characterization of the myogenic precursors, the protocols used for cell differentiation, or a combination of b...