Clare Blackburn

Last updated

Clare Blackburn
Alma mater
Awards
Scientific career
Fields Biology
Institutions
Thesis A study of the secreted acetylcholinesterases of Nippostrongylus basiliensis  (1991)
Website www.ed.ac.uk/profile/clare-blackburn

Catherine Clare Blackburn FRSE is a British biologist. She received her Bachelor of Science degree at University of Edinburgh in 1984 and her PhD at Imperial College London in 1991. Following Wellcome Trust fellowships at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, University of Oxford, she returned to the University of Edinburgh in 1997. Since 2011, she has been Professor of Tissue Stem Cell Biology at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine. [2]

Contents

Blackburn's group focuses on the research of thymus development. In 2014, they successfully created functional thymus cells from fibroblasts of a mouse, using the reprogramming technique. [3] [4]

Blackburn is the Project Coordinator of the pan-European EuroStemCell public engagement initiative. [5] She has also co-produced a number of documentary films including the feature-length "Stem Cell Revolutions". [6] [7] [8]

Honours and awards

In 2012, Blackburn was awarded the University of Edinburgh's Tam Dalyell Prize for Excellence in Engaging the Public with Science. [9] In 2015, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [1]

Related Research Articles

Fibroblast Animal connective tissue cell that synthesizes extracellular matrix, collagen, animal stroma and helps in wound healing

A fibroblast is a type of biological cell that synthesizes the extracellular matrix and collagen, produces the structural framework (stroma) for animal tissues, and plays a critical role in wound healing. Fibroblasts are the most common cells of connective tissue in animals.

An artificial organ is a human made organ device or tissue that is implanted or integrated into a human — interfacing with living tissue — to replace a natural organ, to duplicate or augment a specific function or functions so the patient may return to a normal life as soon as possible. The replaced function does not have to be related to life support, but it often is. For example, replacement bones and joints, such as those found in hip replacements, could also be considered artificial organs.

Embryonic stem cell Pluripotent stem cell of the inner cell mass of the blastocyst

Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst, an early-stage pre-implantation embryo. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4–5 days post fertilization, at which time they consist of 50–150 cells. Isolating the embryoblast, or inner cell mass (ICM) results in destruction of the blastocyst, a process which raises ethical issues, including whether or not embryos at the pre-implantation stage have the same moral considerations as embryos in the post-implantation stage of development.

Christopher Bishop

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Induced pluripotent stem cell Pluripotent stem cell generated directly from a somatic cell

Induced pluripotent stem cells are a type of pluripotent stem cell that can be generated directly from a somatic cell. The iPSC technology was pioneered by Shinya Yamanaka’s lab in Kyoto, Japan, who showed in 2006 that the introduction of four specific genes, collectively known as Yamanaka factors, encoding transcription factors could convert somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells. He was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize along with Sir John Gurdon "for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent."

Shinya Yamanaka Japanese stem cell researcher

Shinya Yamanaka is a Japanese stem cell researcher, and a Nobel Prize laureate. He serves as the director of Center for iPS Cell Research and Application and a professor at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyoto University; as a senior investigator at the UCSF-affiliated Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, California; and as a professor of anatomy at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Yamanaka is also a past president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR).

Janet Rossant Biologist

Janet Rossant, is a developmental biologist well known for her contributions to the understanding of the role of genes in embryo development. She is a world renowned leader in developmental biology. Her current research interests focus on stem cells, molecular genetics, and developmental biology. Specifically, she uses cellular and genetic manipulation techniques to study how genes control both normal and abnormal development of early mouse embryos. Rossant has discovered information on embryo development, how multiple types of stem cells are established, and the mechanisms by which genes control development. In 1998, her work helped lead to the discovery of the trophoblast stem cell, which has assisted in showing how congenital anomalies in the heart, blood vessels, and placenta can occur.

Junying Yu is a Chinese stem cell biologist. She is a researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Cell potency Ability of a cell to differentiate into other cell types

Cell potency is a cell's ability to differentiate into other cell types. The more cell types a cell can differentiate into, the greater its potency. Potency is also described as the gene activation potential within a cell, which like a continuum, begins with totipotency to designate a cell with the most differentiation potential, pluripotency, multipotency, oligopotency, and finally unipotency.

Dermal fibroblasts are cells within the dermis layer of skin which are responsible for generating connective tissue and allowing the skin to recover from injury. Using organelles, dermal fibroblasts generate and maintain the connective tissue which unites separate cell layers. Furthermore, these dermal fibroblasts produce the protein molecules including laminin and fibronectin which comprise the extracellular matrix. By creating the extracellular matrix between the dermis and epidermis, fibroblasts allow the epithelial cells of the epidermis to affix the matrix, thereby allowing the epidermal cells to effectively join together to form the top layer of the skin.

List:

Induced stem cells (iSC) are stem cells derived from somatic, reproductive, pluripotent or other cell types by deliberate epigenetic reprogramming. They are classified as either totipotent (iTC), pluripotent (iPSC) or progenitor or unipotent – (iUSC) according to their developmental potential and degree of dedifferentiation. Progenitors are obtained by so-called direct reprogramming or directed differentiation and are also called induced somatic stem cells.

Centre for Regenerative Medicine Stem cell research centre

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Helen Blau American biochemist

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Hossein Baharvand

Hossein Baharvand is an Iranian stem cell and developmental biologist. He received his B.Sc. in biology from Shiraz University in 1994, and M.Sc. in Developmental Biology from Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran in 1996. He then obtained his Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology from Khwarizmi University in 2004. He joined the Royan Institute in 1995 in which he founded the Stem Cell Biology and Technology department.

Regeneration in humans is the regrowth of lost tissues or organs in response to injury. This is in contrast to wound healing, or partial regeneration, which involves closing up the injury site with some gradation of scar tissue. Some tissues such as skin, the vas deferens, and large organs including the liver can regrow quite readily, while others have been thought to have little or no capacity for regeneration following an injury.

Sethu Vijayakumar

Sethu Vijayakumar FRSE is Professor of Robotics at the University of Edinburgh and a judge on the BBC2 show Robot Wars. He is the Programme co-Director for Artificial Intelligence at The Alan Turing Institute, the UK's National Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, with the responsibility for defining and driving the institute's Robotics and Autonomous Systems agenda. He co-founded the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics in 2015 and was instrumental in bringing the first NASA Valkyrie humanoid robot out of the United States of America, and to Europe, where is it a focus of research at the School of Informatics. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2013.

Mouse embryonic fibroblast

Mouse Embryonic Fibroblasts (MEFs) are a type of fibroblast prepared from mouse embryo. MEFs show a spindle shape when cultured in vitro, a typical feature of fibroblasts. The MEF is a limited cell line. After several transmission, MEFs will senesce and finally die off. Nevertheless, researchers can use several strategies, like virus infection or repeated transmission to immortalize MEF cells, which can let MEFs grown indefinitely in spite of some changes in characters.

Derrick Rossi Canadian stem cell biologist

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Julian Blow is a molecular biologist, Professor of Chromosome Maintenance, and Interim Vice-Principal at the School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Scotland.

References

  1. 1 2 "Professor Catherine Clare Blackburn FRSE". The Royal Society of Edinburgh. 24 August 2020. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
  2. "Prof Clare Blackburn, Personal Chair in Tissue Stem Cell Biology". Edinburgh Research Explorer. Retrieved 29 August 2014.
  3. University of Edinburgh. "Scientists grow an organ in an animal from cells created in lab". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 29 August 2014.
  4. Bredenkamp, Nicholas; Ulyanchenko, Svetlana; O’Neill, Kathy Emma; Manley, Nancy Ruth; Vaidya, Harsh Jayesh; Blackburn, Catherine Clare (September 2014). "An organized and functional thymus generated from FOXN1-reprogrammed fibroblasts". Nature Cell Biology. 16 (9): 902–908. doi:10.1038/ncb3023. PMC   4153409 . PMID   25150981.
  5. "About EuroStemCell | Europe's Stem Cell Hub". www.eurostemcell.org. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
  6. "Stem Cell Revolutions". Stem Cell Revolutions. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
  7. "Clare Blackburn Research Group". The University of Edinburgh.
  8. "Clare Blackburn". IMDb. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
  9. "Tam Dalyell Prize for Excellence in Engaging the Public with Science". The University of Edinburgh. Retrieved 27 August 2020.

Clare Blackburn at IMDb