There is provided a method for culturing a stem cell in vitro. The method comprises providing a substrate surface coated with a coating comprising a molecule having a catechol moiety or a polymer thereof; and growing a stem cell on said coated substrate surface in a growth medium.

Provided herein are methods that relate, in some aspects, to the incubation or culturing, such as to induce stimulation of expansion (proliferation), activation, costimulation and/or survival, of a composition of cells, such as a population of lymphocytes. In some aspects, provided are methods and reagents for the stimulation, e.g., of expansion (proliferation), survival or persistence, activation, costimulation, or other effect, of cell populations that involve binding of agents to a molecule on the surface of the cells, thereby providing one or more signals to the cells. In some cases, the reagents are reagents containing a plurality of binding sites for agents, such as multimerization reagents, and thus the one or more agents are multimerized by reversibly binding to the reagent, e.g., thereby creating a stimulatory reagent (multimerized agent), having stimulatory agents multimerized thereon. In some aspects, the multimerized agent can provide for expansion or proliferation or other stimulation of a population of cells, and then such stimulatory agents can be removed by disruption of the reversible bond. Also provided are compositions, apparatus and methods of use thereof.

The invention provides an animal cell culture kit to be used favorably for culturing animal cells, a method for culturing animal cells, a method for culturing selectively animal cells, and a method for differentiating a cell. An animal cell culture kit according to the invention includes an incubator containing one or more types of functional groups selected from the group consisting of hydrophilic functional groups and hydrophobic functional groups at predetermined contents on a surface, and a serum-free culture medium. Since the animal cell culture kit includes an incubator having a functional group suitable for adhesion and proliferation of specific animal cells, proliferation of animal cells can be promoted even with a serum-free culture medium.

Patterned hydrogel arrays and methods of preparing patterned hydrogel arrays are disclosed. Advantageously, the methods used to prepare the patterned hydrogel arrays allow for controlling individual hydrogel spot conditions such as hydrogel spot modulus, hydrogel spot ligand identity and hydrogel spot ligand density, which allows for preparing a wide range of hydrogel spots in a single array format. Patterned hydrogel arrays can also be formed to include hydrogel-free pools surrounded by hydrogel. Additionally, the patterned hydrogel arrays of the present disclosure support the culture of a range of cell types. The patterned hydrogel arrays offer the ability to rapidly screen substrate components for influencing cell attachment, spreading, proliferation, migration, and differentiation.

A method of culturing autogenous cells as well as a method of treating a mammalian patient is described. The cells are cultured on a substrate material having a surface treated with a fatty acid ester so as to have a strong hydrophobic surface and autogenous plasma obtained from a blood sample of the patient is used as a growth medium in order to culture the cells. The substrate material is also used as a transfer dressing for transferring the cultured cells to the patient and as a wound cover dressing. The invention also describes a kit as well as a system for culturing autogenous cells using the culture method.

The present invention relates to the use of an hydrogel comprising silylated biomolecule for the three-dimensional culture of cardiomyocytes or stem cells which are able to differentiate into cardiomyocytes, and to an aqueous composition comprising i) cardiomyocytes or stem cells which are able to differentiate into cardiomyocytes, and ii) a hydrogel comprising silylated biomolecule, for use for treating heart failure, in particular heart failure following myocardial infarction.

Hybrid hydrogels, made of a three-dimensional network of fibrillar nanostructures, at least a portion of the fibrillar nanostructures being formed of at least two different types of aromatic moieties, at least one type of the aromatic moieties being an end-capping modified aromatic dipeptide and at least another type of the aromatic moieties being an amine-modified halogenated aromatic amino acid, are provided. Also provided are processes of preparing the hybrid hydrogels and uses thereof.

The present invention discloses selective surfaces, wherein said selective surfaces comprise a biocompatible polymer comprising maleic anhydride molecules and an apoptosis inducing ligand bound to the maleic anhydride molecules. The invention also encompasses devices and kits comprising the selective surface and methods for its production. The selective surfaces may be used for functional selection of cell populations suitable for transplantation into human subjects.

Provided are pharmaceutical compositions that include a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier and isolated post-natal cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs) and/or progeny cells thereof that are SSEA3-positive and c-kit-negative. Also provided are methods for preparing cells capable of repairing damaged myocardium, methods for isolating populations of SSEA3-positive/c-kit-negative CPCs from cardiac tissue samples, methods for preparing an isolated cell population enriched in post-natal SSEA3-positive/c-kit-negative CPCs, therapeutic methods for using the presently disclosed cells and populations of cells to treat subjects in need thereof, and cell cultures that contain the presently disclosed cells and populations of cells.

The present invention relates to the use compounds comprising two or more hydrophobic domains and a hydrophilic domain comprising a polyethylene glycol (PEG) moiety for stabilization of a cell, and methods related thereto.