Achievement

Because research involving human embryonic stem cells (hESC) is not prevalent on the UMass Amherst campus, training opportunities are limited. ICE IGERT collaborated with the Human Stem Cell Bank at the UMass Medical School to sponsor a lab module entitled “Basic Human Embryonic Stem Cell Culture.” Eleven students attended a 3 day workshop at the Human Stem Cell Bank, where they learned culture techniques for both human and induced-pluripotent stem cells, including methods to maintain pluripotency. For Whitney Stoppel (ICE IGERT trainee, chemical engineering), this training fostered a collaboration between her advisor (Roberts, ICE IGERT PI) and the Stem Cell Bank, resulting in an NIH R21 proposal submission. Trainee Leslie Conway commented, “This course was an extremely beneficial experience for me, as my lab works primarily with in vitro systems. This lab module allowed me to become more familiar with cell culture techniques, a skill I would not have been able to acquire in my lab.