Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Aug 2.
Published in final edited form as: Blood Rev. 2009 Nov 11;24(1):27–37. doi: 10.1016/j.blre.2009.10.001

Table 3.

Human blood cell therapies from pluripotent stem cells: Limitations and some potential solutions.

Limitations: Possible solution
Generation of mostly primitive blood progenitors instead of definitive type-HSC

  • Improving HSC generation by optimizing the in vitro differentiation protocols using:

    • morphogens46, cytokines, small molecules and

    • biomechanical stimuli mimicking the in vivo developmental environment47

  • Development of non-HSC blood cell therapies:

    • erythroid progenitors

    • megakaryocytes

    • neutrophils

    • NK-cells (e.g. engineered with antitumor activity)
HSC identification Characterization of the fetal HSC phenotype
HSC maintainance Discovery of protocols based on cytokines & small molecules
Tumorigenicity & safety Transplantation of well differentiated (sorted) progenitors
Engineering of inducible suicide programs
Homing deficiencies Transplantation directly into the bone marrow
Assessment of HSC/progenitors in xenotransplantation assays Supplementation of non-/(weakly)-cross reactive mouse cytokines with human counterparts
Creation of a human stem cell niche by cotransplantation of human stromal cells