| Project description
A collaboration between Chalmers/GU and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
Troy, NY, USA has been established through this project. Despite the crucial
importance of the nervous system, the field of neural stem cell differentiation
is still quite unexplored. The underlying hypothesis for this in vitro research
project is that electrical stimulation induces asymmetric differentiation in
neural stem cells. Cells are to be cultured at Chalmers on conductive polymeric
biomaterials formulated at Rensselaer and characterized at Chalmers. The effects
of electrical parameters (such as magnitude of the current, duration of
exposure etc.) on neural stem cell proliferation and differentiation based
on phenotype expression will be investigated using a laboratory setup developed
at Rensselaer and reproduced at Chalmers. Johan Gustavsson, scholar from
Chalmers, will travel to Rensselaer for 3 months (January - March 2004) to
learn to use the experimental setup and the conducting polymeric cell culture
substrates. Experiments will be performed upon his return to Chalmers,
with an estimated project completion date of Sept 2004.
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