The Cell Culture Lab is an essential component of a Translational Medicine platform. Within the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology of the CEMT, a Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory was designed according to the biosecurity standards in force for a BSL 2 level.

Cell cultures (cell lines and primary cells), primary cell isolation activities for in vitro studies (eg hepatocyte isolation from liver tissue fragments, digestive epithelial cell isolation), ectopic gene expression studies , customized cell lines can be generated using pluripotent cells induced for personalized genetic and pharmacological studies.

Research Activities

• isolation of human hepatocytes and digestive epithelial cells and research of new in vitro cultivation techniques aiming at functional preservation
• hepatocyte / hepatic proliferative hepatic transdifferentiation studies by ectopic expression of transcription factors
• obtaining human hepatocyte-like cells customized by cellular reprogramming techniques with potential utility in personalized pharmacology studies and regenerative medicine;
• the study of epithelial-mesenchymal transition phenomena and hepatocyte reprogramming under conditions of chronic liver injury.
• the role of ectopic expression of transcription factors as a method of regenerative gene therapy in chronic diseases and antitumor therapy
• Generation of in vitro cellular modeling models using new genomic editing techniques