at UCLA we have some funding to look at
two different approaches for the
derivation of embryonic stem cell lines
from pre-implantation blastocyst so
these plastic cysts come from the in
vitro fertilization clinic these are
couples that have come into the clinic
that have a problem with their fertility
and this is one of the options that
these couples have in terms of having a
family these embryos have undergone a
process which begins at the level of the
egg and the sperm and so of course the
egg is a female cell the sperm is a male
cell and these are combined together in
a dish to since she produce a one cell
early embryo and this one saw embryo
grows in a dish by dividing to form a
ball of cells called the blastocyst and
all these stages of development from
this these one cell embryo all the way
to the small ball of cells in the
blastocyst which is about day five of
embryo development is called a pre
implantation embryo and it's a pre
implantation area because it has not
implanted yet in the uterus when these
embryo stem cells have derived from one
blastocyst those groups of cells are
actually referred to as embryonic stem
cell lines and so therefore one line
comes from one blastocyst but as a
consequence of these IVF strategies a
number of surplus embryos are in fact
generated and these surplus embryos are
then either going to be discarded or
frozen down if the couple decides at a
later date to have another child and so
for deriving embryonic stem cell lines
we're fortunate enough to have embryos
that are consented to us that would
ultimately be discarded as a scientist
and very cognizant that these embryos
are extremely precious and so I feel
very grateful that couples once they've
completed their family are actually
willing to donate these embryos
to research an approach that my lab
takes because of our overall goal which
is understanding reproductive health is
to use embryonic stem cells to derive a
cell type so we can actually study the
biology of that cell type in a dish what
we do is differentiate this germ cell or
this egg and a sperm from the
pluripotent stem cell population and ask
what is important for this cell type to
form what is it about this cell type
that is required in order for it to be
able to be used in fertility because
infertility actually affects 30% of the
population so we believe that results
from this kind of research will help us
to understand the underlying causes of
infertility and I'm really excited when
we can look into a dish of
differentiating and break stem cells and
say aha here is the cell type that we
are the most interest in studying here
is this early cell that's progenitor
cell which is ultimately going to go on
to form an egg or a sperm so recently in
my lab what we've been doing is spending
a lot of effort trying to understand how
many cells were actually formed this
cell type and now we can actually take
our fingers essentially and point to
this cell and say here is the cell that
we're interested in now we can study
this cell so now we can understand how
eggs and sperm form now we can
understand why when eggs and sperm don't
form correctly this can ultimately
result in children that are born at
birth defects so by understanding the
correct formation of this lineage this
opens up a huge area of research to
understand this one cell type so that's
the most exciting finding in my
laboratory so far and as a scientist I'm
extremely grateful that these couples
are willing to donate their embryos to
research and this research ultimately
will result in in a benefit to
Californians and to society and this
benefit is through both generating
potentially a cell type that can help
somebody that whose cells are no longer
operating correctly so in some sort of
transplantation therapy or these
embryonic stem cell lines as since you
can help help understand basic science
help understand the fundamentals of cell
lineage differentiation because it's
these fundamentals of science which
ultimately lead to the new cures and
therapies in the future
you