Compositions and methods useful as research tools for identifying agents effective in treating respiratory diseases and infections are disclosed herein. Methods include providing a composition comprising a human lung organoid model culture composition comprising human lung proximal airway epithelial cells and distal airway epithelial cells. Methods also include infecting the composition with a respiratory infectious agent. Methods further include administering a candidate therapeutic agent to the composition and determining whether a treatment effective response by the agent occurs in the composition.

Disclosed are methods of preparing CD34+CD43+ hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPC) in vitro according to embodiments of the invention. Also disclosed are methods of differentiating CD34+CD43+ hematopoietic progenitor cells to hematopoietic lineage cells according to embodiments of the invention. Also disclosed are methods of treating or preventing a condition in a mammal, e.g., cancer, according to embodiments of the invention.

The present disclosure provides, inter alia, methods and compositions for differentiation of pluripotent stem cells and derived hematopoietic lineage cells including hemogenic endothelial cells, hematopoietic progenitor cells and natural killer cells. The differentiation efficiency for the hemogenic endothelial cells, the hematopoietic progenitor cells and the natural killer cells can be improved by using the methods and compositions of this disclosure described herein.

The present invention provides improved and/or shortened processes and methods for preparing TILs in order to prepare therapeutic populations of TILs with increased therapeutic efficacy for the treatment of cancer with TILs in combination with CT-LA-4 and PD-1 inhibitors and/or PD-L1 inhibitors as described herein.

The invention features compositions comprising agents having cardiac protective activity isolated from epicardial progenitor cells and derivatives thereof, and methods for the use of such compositions.

Methods for producing hepatocyte and/or cholangiocyte lineage cells from pluripotent stem cells, the method comprising (a) specifying the extended nodal agonist treated induced endodermal cell population to obtain a cell population comprising hepatocyte and/or cholangiocyte progenitors by contacting the extended nodal agonist treated induced endodermal cell population with specification media comprising a FGF agonist and a BMP4 agonist and/or active conjugates and/or fragments thereof; (b) inducing maturation, and optionally further lineage specification and/or expansion of the hepatocyte and/or cholangiocyte progenitors of the cell population to obtain a population comprising hepatocyte lineage cells such as hepatoblasts, hepatocytes and/or cholangiocytes, the inducing maturation step comprising generating aggregates of the cell population. Optionally, the method also comprises activating the cAMP pathway within the aggregates and forming co-aggregates.

Methods of producing stem cell conditioned media to treat mammalian injuries or insults. In at least one embodiment of a method of producing a stem cell conditioned media of the present disclosure, the method comprises the steps of culturing at least one stem cell in a first cell culture medium, replacing some or all of the first cell culture medium with a second cell culture medium and further culturing the at least one stem cell in the second cell culture medium, and collecting a quantity of the second cell culture medium after a culture duration, wherein the quantity of the second cell culture medium contains a cell culture byproduct effective to treat a mammalian insult or injury.

A composition including adult pluripotent olfactory stem cells is provided. The adult pluripotent olfactory stem cells are obtained by culturing a cell mixture from an olfactory tissue of a mammal in media containing growth factors and then isolating cells which express B-lymphoma moloney murine leukemia virus insertion region-1 (Bmi-1).

The invention features compositions comprising agents having cardiac protective activity isolated from epicardial progenitor cells and derivatives thereof, and methods for the use of such compositions.

The present invention may be included in the field of biotechnology and it covers the improved production of recombinant proteins in insect cells or insect larvae as biofactories by a novel expression cassette. This expression cassette comprises nucleic acid sequences such as promoters, homologous regions (hr) as enhancers, and sequences encoding transcriptional regulators, for example, the baculovirus Ac-ie-01 cDNA, or any combination thereof, which are able to increase the quality and production efficiency of the recombinant proteins. Moreover, the present invention is also directed to the vectors themselves comprising the above mentioned nucleic acid sequences of the invention, cells or insects infected, transformed or transfected with those sequences or vectors, and methods for producing the recombinant proteins by using the aforesaid sequences, vectors, cells or insects.