Seminar - “Polysaccharide Hydrogels for Soft Tissue Regeneration”, by Catherine Le Visage, Research Director and Deputy Director, School of Dental Surgery, University of Nantes, France

Monday, March 27, 2017 11:30 am - 11:30 am EDT (GMT -04:00)

ABSTRACT:   The Regenerative Medicine and Skeleton laboratory (INSERM U1229, Nantes, France) has developed an injectable and self-hardening silated-HydroxyPropylMethyl Cellulose (Si-HPMC) hydrogel. In this talk, we will go through our recent approaches using Si-HPMC hydrogels as a drug and/or cell carrier in the context of degenerative diseases. Intervertebral disc (IVD) disease is a major cause of low back pain and a low-invasive approach for intradiscal delivery of therapeutics is of particular interest. We demonstrated the role of Growth Differenciation Factor-5 as a nucleopulpogenic growth factor to induce differentiation of human stromal cells into disc cells and we are now evaluating its in vitro sustained release as well as its ability to promote in situ regenerative process. Osteoarthritis, a joint disease in which cartilage degeneration goes along with synovium inflammation, could benefit from the ability of Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (MSCs) to secrete anti-inflammatory and immuno-modulatory factors. Considering cell leakage/death upon intra-articular injection, we propose to embed MSCs in a cytoprotective hydrogel to extend their local retention and long-term clinical efficacy. We have compared several methods (dripping, emulsification, soft lithography) to prepare hydrogel-based particles with a controlled size and demonstrated cell viability after encapsulation, as well the secretion of secrete therapeutic factors (PGE2, IDO, HGF).

Bio-Sketch:
Catherine Le Visage is currently a Research Director and the Deputy Director of INSERM UMR 1229/Regenerative Medicine and Skeleton (RMeS) laboratory (University of Nantes, France). She was trained as a Pharmacist and she received her PhD in Pharmaceutical Technologies from University Paris 11. She then performed a post-doctoral training at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (USA) in Prof Kam Leong’s laboratory with a focus on thermo-sensitive hydrogels for stem cell delivery. In 2007, she joined the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research to investigate chemically cross-linked polysaccharides hydrogels as platforms for regenerative medicine. Currently, her interest lies in developing hydrogels for long-term delivery of biochemical cues in the context of soft tissues such as intervertebral disc disease and osteoarthritis. She has coordinated a France-Singapore ANR project on functionalized hydrogels and has been a co-PI in multiple national grants on cell therapy and regenerative medicine. She has authored 49 publications in ISI-indexed journals (h-index 21) and 11 patents.