The group focuses on three main aspects of tissue engineering: stem cells, genes and biomaterials. The group has developed substantial expertise in skeletal tissue injury models in rodents, which include critical size bone defects, chondral and osteochondral defects and tendon tears in mice and rats. Furthermore, the lab is a pioneer in the use of molecular and micro imaging in skeletal repair. Role and contribution: isolation and genetic engineering of adult mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), labelling of MSCs with nanoparticles, in vivo injection of labelled MSCs into rat intervertebral disc (IVD), generation of rat IVD degeneration, perform all molecular biology assays required for the invasive bio-distribution of MSCs at distant organs, including quantitative RT-PCR.
Olga Mizrahi
MSc. student at the Skeletal Biotech Lab. Sh eis in
charge of cell culture and labelling. She also performs MRI scans with Prof.
Navon’s team and histological analysis.