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tributed by the Biobank Team                                               ka  was  conferred  the  Nobel
       members  as  wells  as  other                                              Prize  in  2012.  In  the  past  10
       FMHS  academic  staff,  Senior        healthy adult cells or cells with    years,  FMHS  researchers  has
       Professor  Dr  Choo  Kong             disease trait e.g. cancer. iPSC      successfully  produced  more
       Bung, Professor Dr Alan Ong           shows  typical  characteristics      than  10  iPSC  lines  derived
       and Dr Teoh Hoon Koon.                of pluripotent embryonic stem        from  various  disease  models

                                             cells (ESC) such as self-renew-      and published up to 11 peer-re-
       Prof Cheong gave an introduc-         al, positive expression of pluri-    view articles related to iPSC.
       tion  on  stem  cells  and            potent  markers  (e.g.  SOX2,
       explained  how  cells  can  be        klef4,  etc.)  and  the  ability  to   The team generated iPSC-can-
       developed into iPSC. She said,        trilineage       differentiation.    cer cell lines for disease mod-
       “Stem cells are specific human        Oowing  to  these  unique  fea-      elling  and  drug  discovery.
       cells  that  are  able  to  develop   tures, in recent years, iPSC has     Among  the  iPSC-cancer  cell
       into  many  different  somatic        become  the  spotlight  in  the      lines  that  were  successfully
       cell types, from muscle cells to      research on regenerative medi-       generated included iPSC-mye-

       brain cells. With in vitro repro-     cine,  personalised  medicine,       loid leukaemia, iPSC-osteosar-
       gramming  procedures,  adult          disease  modelling  and  drug        coma,  iPSC-oral  squamous
       somatic       cells    can      be    discovery.”                          cell  carcinoma,  and  iPSC-co-
       reverse-developed into special                                             lonic      carcinoma.       Using
       stem cells called iPSC.”              In   2012,     Prof     Cheong’s     virus-free,  serum-free  tech-
                                             research team was the first to       niques, the team was also able
       He  added,  “iPSC  can  be            generate  iPSC  in  Malaysia.        to  establish  clinical-grade,
       induced  from  either  normal         This  technology  was  first         GMP-compliant  normal  iPSC

                                             reported  in  2006  and  the
                                             discoverer, Dr Shinya Yamana-


































   The UTAR Biobank for iPSC is located at the FMHS Postgraduate Laboratory of UTAR Sungai Long Campus. In the picture, Teh was loading iPSC vials for
   storage in the vapour phase of liquid nitrogen.
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