The invention relates to in vitro methods for isolating, or producing selected populations of human epicardial cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells; defined mixtures of said cells, and therapeutic uses thereof. Said population comprises epicardial cells with or without the potential to differentiate into cardiac fibroblasts, or a mixture thereof.

The present invention relates to a method, which patterns 3D organoids prepared from human pluripotent stem cells and chops the same so as to culture oligodendrocyte progenitor cells, and induces the differentiation thereof so as to obtain a large quantity of finally differentiated oligodendrocytes. Compared to cells differentiated by a conventional differentiation method, oligodendrocytes obtained in a large quantity have the same or superior reproducibility, stability, and functionality and have remarkably shortened differentiation time, and thus are expected to be very useful for cell therapeutic agents or for screening for therapeutic drugs.

The improved 4-5 day, optionally 3-5 day GMP-compliant in-vitro method enables the production of macrophages from monocytes that benefits from a shorter cell culture time, fewer interventions whilst maintaining the desired characteristics of the human macrophages. The present invention describes a method wherein the monocytes are cultured in medium comprising one or more growth actors to stimulate macrophages with a pro-regenerative phenotype. The method described herein is xeno-free, serum-free and GMP compliant. In addition, further disclosed are macrophages produced according to the present invention and the use of said macrophages in the treatment of liver diseases, such as liver cirrhosis.

The present disclosure relates to improved methods serum free stem cell culture, particularly 3D culture in bioreactors as well as cell culture medium and compositions for use in the same. Such methods may be particularly suitable for large scale cell manufacture.

The present invention provides a culture method capable of maturing an organoid through long-term culture, and suitable for producing a conformational organ. The culture method of the present invention is a method for culturing an organoid and/or cells constituting an organ immobilized in a chamber with a culture fluid perfused, and the culture fluid is perfused in such a manner as to generate a turbulent flow in the chamber.

Disclosed are novel means, protocols, and compositions of matter for eliciting an immune response against blood vessels supplying neoplastic tissue. In one embodiment pluripotent stem cells are transfected with one or more genes capable of eliciting immunity. In some embodiments such genes are engineered under control of specific promoters to allow for various specificities of activity. In one specific embodiment pluripotent stem cells engineered to endow properties capable of inducing expression of the α-Gal epitope (Galα1,3Galα1,4G1cNAc-R).

The invention relates to a method for detecting residual, undifferentiated pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) in a culture of cells differentiated from PSCs, the method comprising: culturing the cells on a substrate coated with laminin-521 and E-cadherin in a medium comprising a ROCK inhibitor; quantitating in the cultured cells expression of a marker of residual, undifferentiated PSCs; and comparing the marker expression in the cultured cells with the marker expression in a reference culture of cells comprising a known proportion of PSCs, wherein lower marker expression in the culture of cells than marker expression in the reference culture of cells indicates absence of residual, undifferentiated PSCs in the cultured cells or presence of residual, undifferentiated PSCs in the cultured cells at a proportion lower than the known proportion of PSCs in the reference culture of cells. The invention also relates to a method for manufacturing a therapeutic composition and a method for treating or preventing a condition in a subject.

The present disclosure relates to methods of treating a human subject having a condition mediated by a deficiency in myelin and methods of increasing oligodendrocyte production from human glial progenitor cells. These methods involve selecting a human subject having a condition mediated by a deficiency in myelin or providing a population of human glial progenitor cells and administering to the subject or the population of human glial progenitor cells one or modulators of a cell signaling pathway selected from the group consisting of Notch signaling, cAMP signaling, CIP2A signaling, RXRA signaling, TCF7L2 signaling, and combinations thereof under conditions effective to treat the condition or increase oligodendrocyte production.

Methods for generating multipotent radial glia-like cells and astrocyte-like cells from human pluripotent stem cells are provided along with the related compositions.

Provided is a method of inducing oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) through direct reprogramming from human somatic cells into which a nucleic acid molecule encoding an Oct4 protein or Oct4 protein-treated human somatic cells. The method of inducing OPCs by treating Oct4-overexpressing human somatic cells with a low molecular weight substance may establish OPCs with high efficiency in a short period of time through direct reprogramming without via neural stem cells, and thus the OPCs are useful as a cell therapeutic agent for an intractable demyelinating disease.