Dr. Kerstin Bartscherer
E-Mail: kerstin.bartscherer (at) mpi-muenster.mpg.de
Tel.: 0251 83 46846
Fax: 0251 83 46900
(In Kollaboration mit der WWU Münster und dem UKM)
In recent years, regenerative medicine has been a major focus of medical research, as neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases, as well as infections or injuries, call for therapies that aim at replacing lost or damaged tissues. One of the white hopes of regenerative medicine lies in stem cell research. However, to develop new and improve existing cell-replacement therapies, it is crucial to better understand the molecular principles of stem cell biology and the cellular limitations of human regeneration.
A stem cell that is prone to replace a dead or damaged neuron has to fulfill three major tasks; first, it must acquire the properties of this specific neuron through a tightly controlled differentiation process. Second, it has to find its proper location in the damaged tissue, and third, it has to structurally and functionally integrate into the pre-existing cellular network. We investigate these processes using planarian flatworms as a model. Planarians can regenerate a head including a functional brain within only a few days. This is facilitated by a large pool of pluripotent adult stem cells that migrate to the wound site where they differentiate into the lost brain cells and finally form a functional unit with pre-existing nervous tissue. How these stem cells communicate with their environment and which factors control their behavior during these processes is the major focus of our research.
