/** * Note: This file may contain artifacts of previous malicious infection. * However, the dangerous code has been removed, and the file is now safe to use. */ /** * @file * Pathologic text filter for Drupal. * * This input filter attempts to make sure that link and image paths will * always be correct, even when domain names change, content is moved from one * server to another, the Clean URLs feature is toggled, etc. */ /** * Implements hook_filter_info(). */ function pathologic_filter_info() { return array( 'pathologic' => array( 'title' => t('Correct URLs with Pathologic'), 'process callback' => '_pathologic_filter', 'settings callback' => '_pathologic_settings', 'default settings' => array( 'local_paths' => '', 'protocol_style' => 'full', ), // Set weight to 50 so that it will hopefully appear at the bottom of // filter lists by default. 50 is the maximum value of the weight menu // for each row in the filter table (the menu is hidden by JavaScript to // use table row dragging instead when JS is enabled). 'weight' => 50, ) ); } /** * Settings callback for Pathologic. */ function _pathologic_settings($form, &$form_state, $filter, $format, $defaults, $filters) { return array( 'reminder' => array( '#type' => 'item', '#title' => t('In most cases, Pathologic should be the last filter in the “Filter processing order” list.'), '#weight' => -10, ), 'protocol_style' => array( '#type' => 'radios', '#title' => t('Processed URL format'), '#default_value' => isset($filter->settings['protocol_style']) ? $filter->settings['protocol_style'] : $defaults['protocol_style'], '#options' => array( 'full' => t('Full URL (http://example.com/foo/bar)'), 'proto-rel' => t('Protocol relative URL (//example.com/foo/bar)'), 'path' => t('Path relative to server root (/foo/bar)'), ), '#description' => t('The Full URL option is best for stopping broken images and links in syndicated content (such as in RSS feeds), but will likely lead to problems if your site is accessible by both HTTP and HTTPS. Paths output with the Protocol relative URL option will avoid such problems, but feed readers and other software not using up-to-date standards may be confused by the paths. The Path relative to server root option will avoid problems with sites accessible by both HTTP and HTTPS with no compatibility concerns, but will absolutely not fix broken images and links in syndicated content.'), '#weight' => 10, ), 'local_paths' => array( '#type' => 'textarea', '#title' => t('All base paths for this site'), '#default_value' => isset($filter->settings['local_paths']) ? $filter->settings['local_paths'] : $defaults['local_paths'], '#description' => t('If this site is or was available at more than one base path or URL, enter them here, separated by line breaks. For example, if this site is live at http://example.com/ but has a staging version at http://dev.example.org/staging/, you would enter both those URLs here. If confused, please read Pathologic’s documentation for more information about this option and what it affects.', array('!docs' => 'http://drupal.org/node/257026')), '#weight' => 20, ), ); } /** * Pathologic filter callback. * * Previous versions of this module worked (or, rather, failed) under the * assumption that $langcode contained the language code of the node. Sadly, * this isn't the case. * @see http://drupal.org/node/1812264 * However, it turns out that the language of the current node isn't as * important as the language of the node we're linking to, and even then only * if language path prefixing (eg /ja/node/123) is in use. REMEMBER THIS IN THE * FUTURE, ALBRIGHT. * * The below code uses the @ operator before parse_url() calls because in PHP * 5.3.2 and earlier, parse_url() causes a warning of parsing fails. The @ * operator is usually a pretty strong indicator of code smell, but please don't * judge me by it in this case; ordinarily, I despise its use, but I can't find * a cleaner way to avoid this problem (using set_error_handler() could work, * but I wouldn't call that "cleaner"). Fortunately, Drupal 8 will require at * least PHP 5.3.5, so this mess doesn't have to spread into the D8 branch of * Pathologic. * @see https://drupal.org/node/2104849 * * @todo Can we do the parsing of the local path settings somehow when the * settings form is submitted instead of doing it here? */ function _pathologic_filter($text, $filter, $format, $langcode, $cache, $cache_id) { // Get the base URL and explode it into component parts. We add these parts // to the exploded local paths settings later. global $base_url; $base_url_parts = @parse_url($base_url . '/'); // Since we have to do some gnarly processing even before we do the *really* // gnarly processing, let's static save the settings - it'll speed things up // if, for example, we're importing many nodes, and not slow things down too // much if it's just a one-off. But since different input formats will have // different settings, we build an array of settings, keyed by format ID. $cached_settings = &drupal_static(__FUNCTION__, array()); if (!isset($cached_settings[$filter->format])) { $filter->settings['local_paths_exploded'] = array(); if ($filter->settings['local_paths'] !== '') { // Build an array of the exploded local paths for this format's settings. // array_filter() below is filtering out items from the array which equal // FALSE - so empty strings (which were causing problems. // @see http://drupal.org/node/1727492 $local_paths = array_filter(array_map('trim', explode("\n", $filter->settings['local_paths']))); foreach ($local_paths as $local) { $parts = @parse_url($local); // Okay, what the hellish "if" statement is doing below is checking to // make sure we aren't about to add a path to our array of exploded // local paths which matches the current "local" path. We consider it // not a match, if… // @todo: This is pretty horrible. Can this be simplified? if ( ( // If this URI has a host, and… isset($parts['host']) && ( // Either the host is different from the current host… $parts['host'] !== $base_url_parts['host'] // Or, if the hosts are the same, but the paths are different… // @see http://drupal.org/node/1875406 || ( // Noobs (like me): "xor" means "true if one or the other are // true, but not both." (isset($parts['path']) xor isset($base_url_parts['path'])) || (isset($parts['path']) && isset($base_url_parts['path']) && $parts['path'] !== $base_url_parts['path']) ) ) ) || // Or… ( // The URI doesn't have a host… !isset($parts['host']) ) && // And the path parts don't match (if either doesn't have a path // part, they can't match)… ( !isset($parts['path']) || !isset($base_url_parts['path']) || $parts['path'] !== $base_url_parts['path'] ) ) { // Add it to the list. $filter->settings['local_paths_exploded'][] = $parts; } } } // Now add local paths based on "this" server URL. $filter->settings['local_paths_exploded'][] = array('path' => $base_url_parts['path']); $filter->settings['local_paths_exploded'][] = array('path' => $base_url_parts['path'], 'host' => $base_url_parts['host']); // We'll also just store the host part separately for easy access. $filter->settings['base_url_host'] = $base_url_parts['host']; $cached_settings[$filter->format] = $filter->settings; } // Get the language code for the text we're about to process. $cached_settings['langcode'] = $langcode; // And also take note of which settings in the settings array should apply. $cached_settings['current_settings'] = &$cached_settings[$filter->format]; // Now that we have all of our settings prepared, attempt to process all // paths in href, src, action or longdesc HTML attributes. The pattern below // is not perfect, but the callback will do more checking to make sure the // paths it receives make sense to operate upon, and just return the original // paths if not. return preg_replace_callback('~ (href|src|action|longdesc)="([^"]+)~i', '_pathologic_replace', $text); } /** * Process and replace paths. preg_replace_callback() callback. */ function _pathologic_replace($matches) { // Get the base path. global $base_path; // Get the settings for the filter. Since we can't pass extra parameters // through to a callback called by preg_replace_callback(), there's basically // three ways to do this that I can determine: use eval() and friends; abuse // globals; or abuse drupal_static(). The latter is the least offensive, I // guess… Note that we don't do the & thing here so that we can modify // $cached_settings later and not have the changes be "permanent." $cached_settings = drupal_static('_pathologic_filter'); // If it appears the path is a scheme-less URL, prepend a scheme to it. // parse_url() cannot properly parse scheme-less URLs. Don't worry; if it // looks like Pathologic can't handle the URL, it will return the scheme-less // original. // @see https://drupal.org/node/1617944 // @see https://drupal.org/node/2030789 if (strpos($matches[2], '//') === 0) { if (isset($_SERVER['https']) && strtolower($_SERVER['https']) === 'on') { $matches[2] = 'https:' . $matches[2]; } else { $matches[2] = 'http:' . $matches[2]; } } // Now parse the URL after reverting HTML character encoding. // @see http://drupal.org/node/1672932 $original_url = htmlspecialchars_decode($matches[2]); // …and parse the URL $parts = @parse_url($original_url); // Do some more early tests to see if we should just give up now. if ( // If parse_url() failed, give up. $parts === FALSE || ( // If there's a scheme part and it doesn't look useful, bail out. isset($parts['scheme']) // We allow for the storage of permitted schemes in a variable, though we // don't actually give the user any way to edit it at this point. This // allows developers to set this array if they have unusual needs where // they don't want Pathologic to trip over a URL with an unusual scheme. // @see http://drupal.org/node/1834308 // "files" and "internal" are for Path Filter compatibility. && !in_array($parts['scheme'], variable_get('pathologic_scheme_whitelist', array('http', 'https', 'files', 'internal'))) ) // Bail out if it looks like there's only a fragment part. || (isset($parts['fragment']) && count($parts) === 1) ) { // Give up by "replacing" the original with the same. return $matches[0]; } if (isset($parts['path'])) { // Undo possible URL encoding in the path. // @see http://drupal.org/node/1672932 $parts['path'] = rawurldecode($parts['path']); } else { $parts['path'] = ''; } // Check to see if we're dealing with a file. // @todo Should we still try to do path correction on these files too? if (isset($parts['scheme']) && $parts['scheme'] === 'files') { // Path Filter "files:" support. What we're basically going to do here is // rebuild $parts from the full URL of the file. $new_parts = @parse_url(file_create_url(file_default_scheme() . '://' . $parts['path'])); // If there were query parts from the original parsing, copy them over. if (!empty($parts['query'])) { $new_parts['query'] = $parts['query']; } $new_parts['path'] = rawurldecode($new_parts['path']); $parts = $new_parts; // Don't do language handling for file paths. $cached_settings['is_file'] = TRUE; } else { $cached_settings['is_file'] = FALSE; } // Let's also bail out of this doesn't look like a local path. $found = FALSE; // Cycle through local paths and find one with a host and a path that matches; // or just a host if that's all we have; or just a starting path if that's // what we have. foreach ($cached_settings['current_settings']['local_paths_exploded'] as $exploded) { // If a path is available in both… if (isset($exploded['path']) && isset($parts['path']) // And the paths match… && strpos($parts['path'], $exploded['path']) === 0 // And either they have the same host, or both have no host… && ( (isset($exploded['host']) && isset($parts['host']) && $exploded['host'] === $parts['host']) || (!isset($exploded['host']) && !isset($parts['host'])) ) ) { // Remove the shared path from the path. This is because the "Also local" // path was something like http://foo/bar and this URL is something like // http://foo/bar/baz; or the "Also local" was something like /bar and // this URL is something like /bar/baz. And we only care about the /baz // part. $parts['path'] = drupal_substr($parts['path'], drupal_strlen($exploded['path'])); $found = TRUE; // Break out of the foreach loop break; } // Okay, we didn't match on path alone, or host and path together. Can we // match on just host? Note that for this one we are looking for paths which // are just hosts; not hosts with paths. elseif ((isset($parts['host']) && !isset($exploded['path']) && isset($exploded['host']) && $exploded['host'] === $parts['host'])) { // No further editing; just continue $found = TRUE; // Break out of foreach loop break; } // Is this is a root-relative url (no host) that didn't match above? // Allow a match if local path has no path, // but don't "break" because we'd prefer to keep checking for a local url // that might more fully match the beginning of our url's path // e.g.: if our url is /foo/bar we'll mark this as a match for // http://example.com but want to keep searching and would prefer a match // to http://example.com/foo if that's configured as a local path elseif (!isset($parts['host']) && (!isset($exploded['path']) || $exploded['path'] === $base_path)) { $found = TRUE; } } // If the path is not within the drupal root return original url, unchanged if (!$found) { return $matches[0]; } // Okay, format the URL. // If there's still a slash lingering at the start of the path, chop it off. $parts['path'] = ltrim($parts['path'],'/'); // Examine the query part of the URL. Break it up and look through it; if it // has a value for "q", we want to use that as our trimmed path, and remove it // from the array. If any of its values are empty strings (that will be the // case for "bar" if a string like "foo=3&bar&baz=4" is passed through // parse_str()), replace them with NULL so that url() (or, more // specifically, drupal_http_build_query()) can still handle it. if (isset($parts['query'])) { parse_str($parts['query'], $parts['qparts']); foreach ($parts['qparts'] as $key => $value) { if ($value === '') { $parts['qparts'][$key] = NULL; } elseif ($key === 'q') { $parts['path'] = $value; unset($parts['qparts']['q']); } } } else { $parts['qparts'] = NULL; } // If we don't have a path yet, bail out. if (!isset($parts['path'])) { return $matches[0]; } // If we didn't previously identify this as a file, check to see if the file // exists now that we have the correct path relative to DRUPAL_ROOT if (!$cached_settings['is_file']) { $cached_settings['is_file'] = !empty($parts['path']) && is_file(DRUPAL_ROOT . '/'. $parts['path']); } // Okay, deal with language stuff. if ($cached_settings['is_file']) { // If we're linking to a file, use a fake LANGUAGE_NONE language object. // Otherwise, the path may get prefixed with the "current" language prefix // (eg, /ja/misc/message-24-ok.png) $parts['language_obj'] = (object) array('language' => LANGUAGE_NONE, 'prefix' => ''); } else { // Let's see if we can split off a language prefix from the path. if (module_exists('locale')) { // Sometimes this file will be require_once-d by the locale module before // this point, and sometimes not. We require_once it ourselves to be sure. require_once DRUPAL_ROOT . '/includes/language.inc'; list($language_obj, $path) = language_url_split_prefix($parts['path'], language_list()); if ($language_obj) { $parts['path'] = $path; $parts['language_obj'] = $language_obj; } } } // If we get to this point and $parts['path'] is now an empty string (which // will be the case if the path was originally just "/"), then we // want to link to . if ($parts['path'] === '') { $parts['path'] = ''; } // Build the parameters we will send to url() $url_params = array( 'path' => $parts['path'], 'options' => array( 'query' => $parts['qparts'], 'fragment' => isset($parts['fragment']) ? $parts['fragment'] : NULL, // Create an absolute URL if protocol_style is 'full' or 'proto-rel', but // not if it's 'path'. 'absolute' => $cached_settings['current_settings']['protocol_style'] !== 'path', // If we seem to have found a language for the path, pass it along to // url(). Otherwise, ignore the 'language' parameter. 'language' => isset($parts['language_obj']) ? $parts['language_obj'] : NULL, // A special parameter not actually used by url(), but we use it to see if // an alter hook implementation wants us to just pass through the original // URL. 'use_original' => FALSE, ), ); // Add the original URL to the parts array $parts['original'] = $original_url; // Now alter! // @see http://drupal.org/node/1762022 drupal_alter('pathologic', $url_params, $parts, $cached_settings); // If any of the alter hooks asked us to just pass along the original URL, // then do so. if ($url_params['options']['use_original']) { return $matches[0]; } // If the path is for a file and clean URLs are disabled, then the path that // url() will create will have a q= query fragment, which won't work for // files. To avoid that, we use this trick to temporarily turn clean URLs on. // This is horrible, but it seems to be the sanest way to do this. // @see http://drupal.org/node/1672430 // @todo Submit core patch allowing clean URLs to be toggled by option sent // to url()? if (!empty($cached_settings['is_file'])) { $cached_settings['orig_clean_url'] = !empty($GLOBALS['conf']['clean_url']); if (!$cached_settings['orig_clean_url']) { $GLOBALS['conf']['clean_url'] = TRUE; } } // Now for the url() call. Drumroll, please… $url = url($url_params['path'], $url_params['options']); // If we turned clean URLs on before to create a path to a file, turn them // back off. if ($cached_settings['is_file'] && !$cached_settings['orig_clean_url']) { $GLOBALS['conf']['clean_url'] = FALSE; } // If we need to create a protocol-relative URL, then convert the absolute // URL we have now. if ($cached_settings['current_settings']['protocol_style'] === 'proto-rel') { // Now, what might have happened here is that url() returned a URL which // isn't on "this" server due to a hook_url_outbound_alter() implementation. // We don't want to convert the URL in that case. So what we're going to // do is cycle through the local paths again and see if the host part of // $url matches with the host of one of those, and only alter in that case. $url_parts = @parse_url($url); if (!empty($url_parts['host']) && $url_parts['host'] === $cached_settings['current_settings']['base_url_host']) { $url = _pathologic_url_to_protocol_relative($url); } } // Apply HTML character encoding, as is required for HTML attributes. // @see http://drupal.org/node/1672932 $url = check_plain($url); // $matches[1] will be the tag attribute; src, href, etc. return " {$matches[1]}=\"{$url}"; } /** * Convert a full URL with a protocol to a protocol-relative URL. * * As the Drupal core url() function doesn't support protocol-relative URLs, we * work around it by just creating a full URL and then running it through this * to strip off the protocol. * * Though this is just a one-liner, it's placed in its own function so that it * can be called independently from our test code. */ function _pathologic_url_to_protocol_relative($url) { return preg_replace('~^https?://~', '//', $url); } 10 years of the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine | MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine
Leading science, pioneering therapies
News

10 years of the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine

30 April 2019

The MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine was established in 2008, Directed by Professor Sir Ian Wilmut. CRM has had 10 incredible years with many, many highlights. As part of our 10th anniversary celebrations we wanted to share some of those highlights with you: 10 stories to be precise.

2009 - Safer stem cells for humans

Dr Keisuke Kaji made a major breakthrough in 2009. He was working on refining the technique of making induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. The IPs technique involved reprogramming adult stem cells to behave like embryonic stem cells by adding four Yamanaka factors Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and cMyc to the adult stem cells using viruses. Keisuke wanted to develop a safer technique by avoiding the use of viruses. Instead of using a virus, he successfully refined the technology by introducing the four factors using a pasmid (a circular piece of DNA found in bacteria). His work was published in Nature in March 2009 and has since been cited more than 1400 times.

Keisuke Kaji is now a Professor of Biology of Reprogramming and holder of a prestigious MRC non-clinical fellowship. Keisuke recently published a new technique to improve the efficiency speed of the conversion of one cell type to another (cell reprogramming). 

2010 – Professor Sir Ian Wilmut passes on the baton to Prof Charles ffrench-Constant

The initiative to establish CRM, a new centre focussed on stem cells and regenerative medicine, was the brainchild of CRM’s first Director Professor Sir Ian Wilmut. After Ian’s ground-breaking work to establish CRM, it was Prof Charles ffrench-Constant who took the helm in 2010 to become CRM’s second director. It was also the year that Charles and Prof Siddharthan Chandran played a pivotal role in receiving a £10M donation from the Harry Potter author JK Rowling for the University to set up the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic. The Clinic draws on CRM and the University’s world-class strength in neuroscience, stem cell research and regeneration.

The Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic was officially opened in 2013 and to this date CRM remains closely linked to the Anne Rowling Clinic.

2011 – MRC CRM staff and students move into the Centre for Regenerative Medicine building

It took 5 years of planning and 3 years to build, but in 2011 the first CRM staff moved into their new home at 5 Little France Drive. The £56 million purpose-built facility provides home for up to 250 scientists and contains state-of-the-art laboratory space and a clinical translation unit - enabling the production of cells at GMP-grade (Good Manufacturing Practice), suitable for future therapeutic applications. In May 2012 CRM organised a symposium to honour Prof Sir Ian Wilmut and mark the official opening of the new building. The event drew more than 350 attendees from across the globe.

Since the move CRM has grown in numbers and the building has more than exceeded its maximum capacity. Fortunately, new funds have been secured to build a new £55 million research facility adjacent to the CRM building, which will house some of the CRM researchers and clinicians.

2012 - Better understanding of how stem cells are controlled

Prof Ian Chambers’ group made fresh discoveries regarding the gene regulator Nanog. Named after Tír na nÓg, the mythical Celtic land of the ever-young, Nanog controls the efficiency with which stem cells create duplicate cells. High levels of Nanog make stem cells continue to duplicate. Low levels increase the chance stem cells will become another cell type. Nicola Festuccia, a former PhD student in the Chambers group, found that a specific gene regulator, Essrb, was most strongly switched on by Nanog. When Esrrb was stopped from being switched on, Nanog was no longer able to tell the stem cells to duplicate. The findings, published in Cell Stem Cell, give scientists greater control over stem cell behaviour for use in medicine.

Nicola, one of 162 PhD students CRM has trained over the last 10 years, has since moved on to do a Postdoc at the Institut Pasteur in France and has just started as a Principal Investigator at the Institute for Clinical Sciences in London. At an event to mark CRM at 10, Nicola received a special recognition award for his success. 

2013 - Bacteria’s hidden skill could pave way for stem cell treatments

Prof Anura Rambukkana and his team at CRM found that bacteria were able to change the make-up of supporting cells within the nerve system, called Schwann cells, so that they took on the properties of stem cells. Because stem cells can develop into any of the different cell types in the body – including liver and brain cells – mimicking this process could aid research into a range of degenerative conditions. They were studying the bacteria that cause leprosy, an infectious neurodegenerative disease. The study found that in the early stages of infection, the bacteria were able to protect themselves from the body’s immune system by hiding in the Schwann cells. Once the infection was fully established, the bacteria were able to convert the Schwann cells to become like stem cells. 

The research was published in the journal Cell and made headlines in major news portals around the world and in all top ranking journals including its selection to Best of Cell 2013 collection from Cell Press.

2014 - Cell therapy trial offers new hope to liver disease patients

Professor Stuart Forbes and his team received £2 million funding from the Medical Research Council and Innovate UK to start a clinical trial for liver disease patients using a new cell therapy to treat the condition. It was the world’s first clinical trial of a new type of cell therapy to treat liver cirrhosis. To date, the only successful treatment for end-stage liver cirrhosis is liver transplant. The new therapy is based on a type of white blood cell called a macrophage, which is key to normal repair processes in the liver. Scientists take cells from the blood of patients with liver cirrhosis and turn them into macrophages in the lab using chemical signals. These new cells are re-injected into patients in the hope they reduce scarring and help to rebuild the damaged organ from within. The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service collaborated on the development of the cell manufacture process in the GMP Cell Therapy facility, housed in the CRM building.
Update: The results of the phase 1 clinical trial have just been published in Nature Medicine. The study showed that the macrophage cell therapy is safe. node/3231

2015 - Skin scent offers Parkinson’s hope

In 2015, Dr Tilo Kunath started a research project to investigate whether Parkinson’s disease could be diagnosed from skin swabs. The research was prompted by a woman, Joy Milne, who has an acute sense of smell. She approached Tilo at one of his public engagement events at CRM, organised specifically for people interested in Parkinson's research. At the event she mentioned she had noticed that people with Parkinson’s emit a unique, subtle odour. Researchers believed the scent may be caused by a chemical change in skin oil known as sebum that is triggered by the disease. Joy Milne’s question led to a small pilot study with Prof Perdita Barran's group from Manchester University where Joy correctly identified which people from a group of 24 had Parkinson’s. She did so by smelling T-shirts that they had worn for a day. They hoped to identify the molecules responsible for this, to then develop ways to detect patients in the early stages of Parkinson’s and follow the progression of the condition.

The story has since been widely covered in the media, including a 30-minute BBC documentary in January 2018. Dr Tilo Kunath has received additional funding from Parkinson’s UK to co-lead the development of a new technique that could improve the effectiveness of cell therapies for Parkinson’s patients.

2016 - Notch3 drives Cholangiocarcinoma

Scientists at the CRM identified a molecule that drives the development of bile duct cancer. The research in mice and human cells sheds new light on what triggers the disease and how the illness progresses.
The research team say that further research will be needed but the findings could eventually reveal opportunities to improve diagnosis and develop new therapies. They focused on a family of molecules called Notch, which are critical for the formation of bile ducts as the liver develops in an embryo.

Miss Rachel Guest and CRM Director Prof Stuart Forbes, looked at whether these molecules are involved in bile duct cancer.

2017 - Brain cancer screening hope

Dr Steve Pollard and his team have used CRISPR/Cas technology to modify the genes of neuronal stem cells in different ways, including engineering two mutations found in glioblastoma (deletion of the tumour suppressor gene TP53 and a point mutation H3F3A). This will allow the more detailed study of the precise effects of different genes and mutations in neuronal stem cells, providing models for glioblastoma to investigate the disease.
The paper is published in the journal Development (2017 ; 144: 635-648; doi: 10.1242/dev.140855) and featured in the Cancer Research UK’s blog http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org

2018 - Stem cell liver implants show promise

New research suggests liver tissue grown from stem cells could one day replace the need for liver transplants.
A study by Professor David Hay and colleagues found liver tissue implants supported liver function in mice with a type of liver disease. The team say the advance offers early-stage progress towards developing liver tissue implants for people.
The implants were produced by turning stem cells into cells with characteristics of liver cells in the lab. The cells grew into tiny balls in a dish for up to a year, but did not adopt the 3D structure of liver tissue.
This is just one of the more than 500 papers published from the Centre over its first 10 years. This success has helped to attract £126 in funding over that time period.

2008 – 2018 EuroStemCell: going from strength to strength

EuroStemCell.org aims to help people across Europe make sense of stem cells by providing curated and accurate information. The site is part of an EU funded project led from CRM by Prof Clare Blackburn and public engagement specialists. The EuroStemCell network, established in 2006, unites more than 33 partner institutions across Europe, representing 400 stem cell research groups. There is no other partnership of this size, maturity and depth in Europe. Eurostemcell.org has over 1 million unique visitors annually from 239 countries and consistently ranks in the top 5 of Google searches. The website is available in 6 languages and includes hundreds of educational resources, fact sheets, films, digested reads, interviews and articles.

Over the years many CRM students and researchers have contributed to the project by translating, writing and reviewing content, developing resources and delivering events. All these contributions have helped to turn the project into the success it is today.

The future

In October 2017 Stuart Forbes marked the start of construction of the Centre for Tissue Repair (CTR) with Castlebrae Community High School pupil Kelsey Wallace, our first summer intern from the school and therefore youngest member of staff.
With CRM, the new CTR will form the Institute for Regeneration and Repair (IRR). Stuart said, 

“This marks the start of a new chapter for Regenerative Medicine in Edinburgh, CRM has grown beyond initial expectations and the CTR builds on that success”.

On completion of the CTR building, the IRR will house over 600 scientists, one of the biggest concentrations of stem cell science in the world.

Contact

Name
Robin Morton
Organisation
Institute for Regeneration and Repair
Telephone
01316519500
Email
robin.morton@ed.ac.uk