Abdulkader Rahmo
Stem cell biologist and entrepreneur
Title: Small Mobile Stem cells in emerging tissue organization
Biography
Biography: Abdulkader Rahmo
Abstract
Recent discoveries using organoid 3D culture systems under quite economic conditions demonstrated the inherent potential of pluripotent stem cells and in some cases even adult progenitor stem cells for reproducible complex self-organization. Although efforts have been made trying to explain some of the observed phenomena in terms of classical developmental mechanisms, such as, cell sorting, morphogen mediated patterning and cell morphogenesis; the accurate mechanisms underlying the precise organization of tissue like complexity are largely unknown. One striking feature of Small Mobile Stem cell (SMS) capacity to self-organization is its proclivity to generate a multitude of highly diverse complex geometric shapes, in an economic simple in vitro set up. These shapes create among other things 3D topographic micro-patterns. Similar patterns have been widely recognized to participate in controlling cellular functions such as cell adhesion, migration, proliferation, and differentiation. It is quite possible that these, largely unrecognized SMS derived structures, represent a fundamental missing link to the overall organization of other cells and tissues at large. Specifically adult SMS cells are capable to interact dominantly with other commonly known cells, and could therefore be able to provide for the preeminent scaffolding, that is essential for cell guidance into various tissue spatial organizations.