Changing media for osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation

Author: Vitali Maldonado | Major: Biomedical Engineering | Semester: Fall 2022

Hello everyone! I am Vitali Maldonado, and I am studying biomedical engineering at the University of Arkansas. I am currently a senior and have been working in Dr. Samsonraj’s lab at the Department of Biomedical Engineering for the past 2.5 years. Working in a lab that focuses on mesenchymal stem cells has taught me multiple skills that I can later apply during my Ph.D. which I plan to pursue after graduation. Earlier in the semester, I started working on sequencing RNA. However, since the results took time to arrive, I started focusing on another exciting project. The project’s main goal is to find the differences between early and late cultures of mesenchymal stem/stromal cells. The specific differences I have been studying so far is how well the early passage cells differentiate into adipogenic and osteogenic cells vs. the late passage cells. This is crucial for cell therapy since many of the result discrepancies between treatments and clinical trials are due to the usage of mesenchymal stem cells that display different characteristics from one another (cell heterogeneity). The interesting fact is that the older the cells are, the more heterogeneous they become, and it is unknown how well these heterogeneous cells can differentiate compared to when they were young. To assess the degree of differentiation, I stained the cells after treating them with either osteogenic or adipogenic agents and performed quantitative PCR on them. The results from the late passage cells were compared to their respective early passage cells.

The topic selection was proposed by Dr. Samsonraj. It seemed interesting and I was excited to start the project. It was not easy, but it allowed me to challenge myself in multiple ways and learn new things related to the project and about myself. The main challenge during this semester was the planning part. Multiple experiments needed to be performed in young cells and old cells for different donors. The experiments ranged between 10 days and 28 days. The cells need to be synchronized and used as efficiently as possible so that no cells are wasted. Moreover, I learned effective collaborative skills since I had to coordinate cell seeding and sharing between lab members. I also learned that I work more efficiently under a defined timeline rather than doing things whenever I can.

Dr. Samsonraj was a guide on this project. She helped me plan the project and aided me in answering any questions I had along the way. I coordinated activities needed for experiments and learnt skills required to make this project successful. I plan to keep working on this project next semester and produce results that are significant and provide new knowledge to the scientific community. I want to participate in a conference do a poster presentation and communicate the results I obtained to the public. Finally, Dr. Samsonraj and I are working on a manuscript to get my results published in a scientific journal. As many would agree, hard work put into research pays off with the experiences and knowledge gained.