LUMC hiPSC Hotel
The LUMC hiPSC Hotel was founded in 2011 by the labs of Prof. dr. Christine Mummery and Prof. dr. Hans Tanke. Our services include isolation of somatic cells including PBMCs from blood, skin fibroblasts and renal epithelium cells from urine. The isolated cells are reprogrammed with state of the art episomal vectors, Sendai virus, polycistronic lentivirus, srRNA and mRNA. All lines generated in our facility will undergo basic quality control including STR analysis, characterization of pluripotency status and trilineage differentiation using flow cytometry and immunofluorescence labeling, respectively and karyotyping by G-banding, KaryoStat and/or ddPCR (optional). Up to now we generated >280 hiPSC lines from patients with diverse congenital diseases. In addition, we provide academics and commercial partners with extensively characterized and frequently used control hiPSC lines.
In our facility we also perform gene-editing to generate isogenic control hiPSCs, small-scale mutations and knockout lines using CRISPR/Cas9 technology. Recently, we have added the generation of reporter lines to our portfolio.
Furthermore, we provide validated differentiation protocols that have been developed within our department (Anatomy and Embryology, LUMC), including hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, epicardial cells, cardiac fibroblasts, macrophages and endothelial cells. Besides that, we offer validation and optimization of published differentiation protocols; examples include retinal pigment epithelial cells (RPE), keratinocytes and skin organoids.
In collaboration with StemCell Technologies the LUMC hiPSC Hotel organizes an annual 3-day hands-on training course. Since 2014 we have taught over 100 international participants the principles of reprogramming, maintenance of undifferentiated cells and the basic principles of differentiation. When a more customized training is preferred we can provide this as well.
The LUMC hiPSC Hotel is part of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine, reNEW.
Head of the facility: Dr. Christian Freund (c.m.a.h.freund@lumc.nl)
