Development of an home-made differentiation media conditions to obtain iPSC derived Brain-like Microvascular Endothelial Cell

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) possesses a significant duty to protect brain health and homeostasis against any invaders. Brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs) are the main employees in the configuration of BBB to regulate not only the cross of nutrition but also the interaction between the brain and immunity. To mimic BBB under in vitro conditions, stem cell technology is the widely used approach to recapitulate the in vivo-like responses in BBB-based studies. Due to this, in MustafaogluLab, we are generating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) derived BMECs (iBMECs) to design BBB-related models to engage with organ-on-a-chip technology. In the PURE project, the interns working on this project will focus on generating and optimizing in-house differentiation induction media to improve features and characteristics of iBMECs under in vitro conditions. During the PURE internship period, they will learn the main wet lab techniques to prepare differentiation media with different recipes for the enhancement of iBMECs. Moreover, they will be able to observe culturing stem cells, be familiar with the immunostaining and western blot techniques.