“Pluripotent stem cells: capture of the ground state”. Austin Smith

Austin Smith is probably the investigator that is constantly giving more indications on how to capture the ground state of pluripotent stem cells. His work is based on the characterization of the ground state of pluripotent stem cell lines cultured with different conditions. Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) could be cultured in vitro as an homogenous population. Despite they are used as a general model of pluripotent cells, it has to be take into account that their gene expression profile match with a specific subset of cells that, during the embryonic development in vivo, is present in a specific space and time. Austin Smith define a new culture condition of human ESCs through which it is possible to capture a ground state quite similar to the once of human embryo tissues and to mouse ES cell lines but different from the current human ES cell lines characterized.