Faculty Name, Primary Affiliation |
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Research Interests |
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Mouse models of breast cancer; understanding the changes of epithelial cell growth control that accompany pre-neoplasia and progression. Breast stem cells and their role in tumor initiation. |
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Tissue engineered models of human skin; dissecting the proximal tissue interactions important for AhR ligand toxicity in human stratified squamous epithelia. Differentiation of keratinocytes from human embryonic stem (ES) cells. |
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Creating systems that allow precise control of the cellular microenvironment to both study and control stem cell fate. We work with both hES cells and mammary epithelial progenitor cells with collaborators T. Kamp and C. Alexander. |
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Molecular mechanisms controlling the differentiation of blood cells from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), including: (i) transcriptional mechanisms that control the synthesis of key regulators of HSCs, and (ii) how chromatin domains assemble and are regulated in stem cells vs. differentiated cells. |
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Legal and policy issues in biomedical research.
Committee Liaison for National Academy of Sciences, Ethics Guidelines for Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Member of the ethics standards working group of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
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Preservation and long term storage of mammalian cells, with a particular emphasis on human ES cells. Molecular thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. |
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Strategies to myelinate or remyelinate the brain in animal models of human genetic or acquired myelin disorders. Human neural stem cells and their potential differentiation into the myelin producing cell of the CNS, the oligodendrocyte. Methods for promoting widespread dissemination or migration of cells upon transplantation. |
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As Chair of the Health Sciences IRB and the University's Bioethics Advisory Committee, Dr. Fost has played a central role in developing the conditions of approval for human ES cell research at UW-Madison, including an extensive review of the ethical, legal, regulatory and policy issues affecting stem cell research. Dr. Fost has been a member of the AAAS Working Group on Stem Cell Research. |
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Culture, differentiation, and transplantation of human retinal stem/progenitor cells and retinal pigment epithelial cells. |
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Use of nonhuman primate models, human clinical materials, and ES cells to examine questions of placental biology and maternal-fetal interactions. |
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Hematopoietic differentiation of human and non-human primate ES cells. Development of the rhesus macaque as a pre-clinical model for evaluation of novel gene and stem cell therapies. Hematopoietic stem cell expansion for transplantation.
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Social, ethical and legal/regulatory issues in emerging biomedical technologies. Analysis of emerging regulatory pathways for novel biological and combination products, and organizational and education concerns for future generations of interdisciplinary researchers. |
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Mechanisms controlling differentiation of human ES cells into distinct types of cardiomyocytes and electrophysiological properties of ES cell-derived cardiomyocytes; stem cell-based therapies for myocardial repair and regeneration in cardiac disease models.
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Stem cell controls in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Molecular mechanisms by which the stem cell niche regulates the balance between stem cells and differentiation, and investigation of whether mechanisms regulating stem cells in C. elegans are conserved in humans. |
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Molecular mechanisms controlling normal cardiovascular differentiation and development. We take both in vivo and in vitro approaches; 1) To identify novel factors that are critical for normal cardiovascular development, we generate knock out mice to analyze the phenotype. 2) Using human ES cells, we examine molecular pathways to enhance cardiomyocyte generation. |
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ES cells and cardiac myocyte differentiation in vitro and in vivo.
Genetic approaches to unraveling the complex molecular mechanisms involved in normal heart and vascular development that go awry in congenital heart disease. We also culture mouse, rhesus and human ES cells to produce purified cultures of cardiac myocytes. |
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Science and technology policy, across a broad range of fields from global environmental change to nanotechnology and stem cells. |
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Delivery of developmental signals to influence stem cell activity. Development of biomaterials for tissue regeneration (tissue engineering). Novel approaches to drug delivery and gene therapy. Creation of novel materials using bioinspired approaches. |
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Developing novel stem cell-based strategies for treating diabetes; stem cell biology and differentiation; pancreas and islet cell transplantation. |
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Effects of stresses on growth and differentiation of human ES cells. Improving viability of human ES cells during cryopreservation. We collaborate with Lynn Allen-Hoffmann's group to study human ES cell differentiation into keratinocytes with the long term goal of generating skin product. |
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Fetal stem cell transplantation. Study of the homing, engraftment and differentiation of pre-natally transplanted embryonic stem cell-derived hematopoietic stem cells. Examination of the mechanisms of long-term immunologic tolerance to pre-natally transplanted stem cells. |
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Differentiation of human ES cells into hematopoietic progenitors and mature blood cells in order to understand molecular mechanisms of early hematopoietic differentiation and to provide a novel source of cells for bone marrow transplantation, transfusion and cancer immunotherapy. |
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Neurobiology and neural stem cells, including (i) the molecular mechanisms underlying new neuron production from neural stem cells (ii) the use of human neural stem cells to model neurological diseases and (iii) the transplantation of genetically modified neural stem cells in models of human neurological disease including Parkinson's and ALS. |
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Understanding how human embryonic stem (ES) cells choose between self-renewal, death, and differentiation to specific lineages. Differentiation of human ES cells to early embryonic lineages. |
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Neural lineage differentiation of ES cells. Use of ES cells as a tool to understand early human neural development. Investigating the potential of stem cell derivatives in animal models of neurological conditions. |
