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Michael Longaker Essay

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Joshuah Kapilivsky
Michael Longaker Research Commentary
Dr. Longaker’s research pertains to tissue regeneration and tissue engineering. Additionally he has experience exploring developmental biology, particularly the development and use of pluripotent and multipotent cell lines.
In Identification and Specification of the Mouse Skeletal Stem Cell (Cell, 2015), the Longaker lab explores the differentiation of skeletal stem cells into bone, cartilage, and stromal tissue. Analyzing mRNA present in the cell at different stages of differentiation allowed for determination of the genes that govern which cell type a skeletal stem cell makes. This knowledge was used to shift cell fates from cartilage to bone and vice versa. Additionally, the introduction of BMP2 and VEGF inhibitor allowed for the creation of cartilage in fat tissue. These experiments demonstrate a robust knowledge of the genes that govern the distinct outcomes for differentiated skeletal stem cells. Finally, it was observed that the skeletal stem …show more content…

In this paper AAV6 is again used to infuse channelrhodopsin-2 into mouse tissue. However, this experiment injects it into muscle cells, which allows the ion channel to be expressed only in the neurons that activate the injected muscle. This results in activation of a given muscle in response to light. Instead of transdermal exposure, this experiment uses an implanted fiber optic cuff to wrap around the nerve and emit the light necessary for optogenetic nerve activation. The experimenters were then able to activate the muscle in a freely moving mouse using light, with high temporal sensitive (although other rhodopsins hold the potential for even higher temporal sensitivity). The implantation had limited effect on the natural gait of mice, and neural activation was measured with electrophysiology

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