Our research is focused on a technology driven system for the utilization of stem cells in general, and specifically to improve the quality of life in individuals with lifelong threatening health issues caused by illness, injury or ageing. The work is a frontier investigation across disciplines, that underpins state-of-art biotechnology, fostering the development and implementation of existing and new technologies in the fields of stem cell biology, tissue engineering, dermatology and immunology, with an underlying health enhancement concept.

Derivation of stem cell lines
Working in concordance with ethical and regulatory issues in different EU countries, defining the most relevant assays for testing and validating safety and efficacy, following cGMP requirements and minimizing use of animal-based products and testing on animals.

Disease modeling
We combine novel gene editing technique (CRISPR-Cas9), stem cell technology, tissue engineering, clinical dermatology and immunology and mathematics for generation of highly specific in vitro models of genetic diseases.

Tissue engineering
Development of 3D human full thickness skin model with a functional permeability barrier that is highly reproducible and has the potential to be easily scaled up and adapted to cGMP requirements for the use in drug development as well as regenerative and aesthetic medicine

The Group

• Dr Dusko Ilic
• Professor Peter Braude

Clinical grade human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines

Despite important recent advances in the generation of hESC lines in the effort to generate lines that might be suitable for therapeutic use, there is still some way to go in the development of reliable and efficient methods to allow advancement towards hESC for clinical use, and in the directed differentiation of hESC down particular lineages.

A number of groups world-wide have reported hESC derivation using a variety of conditions, but few have reported derivation under conditions that would normally be regarded as suitable for human use. Within the last 12 months we brought up our derivation technique to clinical grade acceptable level and using this approach we derived successfully under defined xeno-free conditions nine hESC lines. Two normal lines were derived from frozen embryos, whereas seven disease-specific lines were derived from fresh post-preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) embryos.

Disease-specific hESC lines

hESC lines derived from human embryos with genetic mutations following PGD can provide an inexhaustible source of cells that can be differentiated into many cell types and used to further understand the molecular basis of serious diseases for which PGD has been undertaken. Guy’s has the largest and most successful PGD unit in the UK, through which we have privileged access to embryos affected by a range of genetic disorders, including Huntington disease, spinal muscular atrophy, Fragile-X syndrome, and a range of sex linked disorders such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Three out of seven disease-specific lines derived within the last 12 months carry little characterized mutation in Von Hippel-Lindau gene and, at our knowledge, are unique in the world.

King's hES cell lines catalogue

Please see below for the King's hES cell lines catalogue.

For more information and availability contact:
Dr Dusko Ilic
Email: dusko.ilic@kcl.ac.uk

Recent publications

• Stephenson EL, Braude PR (2010) Derivation of the King's College London human embryonic stem cell lines. In Vitro Cell Dev Biol Anim. 94, 1529, e11-4. [PubMed]
• Stephenson E, Ogilvie CM, Patel H, Cornwell G, Jacquet L, Kadeva N, Braude P, Ilic D (2010) Safety paradigm: genetic evaluation of therapeutic grade human embryonic stem cells. J R Soc Interface. 6;7 Suppl 6:S677-88. [PubMed]
• Ilic D, Stephenson E, Wood V, Jacquet L, Stevenson D, Petrova A, et al. Derivation and feeder-free propagation of human embryonic stem cells under xeno-free conditions. Cytotherapy. 2011 Oct 27. [Epub ahead of print] [PubMed]
• Murdoch A, Braude P, Courtney A, Brison D, Hunt C, Lawford-Davies J, Moore H, Stacey G, Sethe S; for the Procurement Working Group of the National Clinical hESC Forum. The Procurement of Cells for the Derivation of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Lines for Therapeutic Use: Recommendations for Good Practice. Stem Cell Rev. 2011 Jun 14. [Epub ahead of print] [PubMed]

King's hES cell lines catalogue

King’s number	hES cell line	Grade
KCL001	Normal	Research
KCL002	Normal	Research
KCL003	Cystic Fibrosis	Research
KCL004	Normal	Research
KCL005	Huntington’s Disease	Research
KCL006	Normal	Research
KCL008	Huntington’s Disease	Research
KCL009	Translocation (7:12)	Research
KCL011	Normal	Research
KCL012	Huntington’s Disease	Research
KCL013	Huntington’s Disease	Research
KCL015	Von Hippel-Lindau Syndrome	Research
KCL016	Von Hippel-Lindau Syndrome	Research
KCL017	Von Hippel-Lindau Syndrome	Research
KCL018	Muscular Dystrophy type 1	Research
KCL019	Normal	Research
KCL020	Normal	Research
KCL021	Cystic Fibrosis	Research
KCL022	Normal	Research
KCL023	Normal	Research
KCL024	Neurofibromatosis type 1	Research
KCL025	Neurofibromatosis type 1	Research
KCL026	Spinal Muscular Atrophy	Research
KCL027	Huntington’s Disease	Research
KCL028	Huntington’s Disease	Research
KCL029	Cystic Fibrosis & Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome	Research
KCL030	Beta-thalassemia	Research
KCL031	Normal
KCL032	Normal
KCL033	Normal	Clinical
KCL034	Normal	Clinical
KCL035	Beta-thalassemia	Research
KCL036	Huntington’s Disease	Research
KCL037	Normal
KCL038	Normal