Director's Message

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's Disease (AD), Parkinson's Disease (PD), Huntington's Disease (HD), and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) affect millions of people each year, and so far no therapeutic treatment is available. Although animal and histological models are very helpful in understanding disease mechanisms and in determining possible therapeutic strategies, they are still more predictive to find solutions to prevent or treat disease, and there is a critical need for systems that can provide physiologically relevant results. One possible way is to develop patient-derived models, e.g. the patient's own stem cells can be programmed with directed differentiation in the culture environment and converted into any cell type. These systems contain basic genetic information from donors and therefore have great potential in drug testing platforms as well as in the pathological mechanisms underlying disease phenotype and progression. Stem cells obtained from patients are widely cultured in 2-dimensional systems and used as a model disease, however, 3-dimensional models have been used in recent years as a more sophisticated alternative to mimic the complexity of the human brain. Significant progress has been made in culturing stem cells, especially by using biomaterials. 3-Dimensional culture methods not only overcome the limitations associated with 2-D cell culture but also have maximum potential in determining the biological properties of cells (proliferation, differentiation, cell death, etc.) necessary for clinical research, pharmaceutical, or biotechnology applications. In these areas, our country needs serious R&D, production, and application studies.

For this purpose, Üsküdar University, cellular treatments, and stem cell production, application and research center (ÜSKÖKMER), to carry out R&D studies aiming to treat other diseases using stem cells, especially neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases that cannot be treated with routine treatment methods, to develop new application methods. and for this purpose, it was established by publishing in the official gazette dated June 1, 2020, to produce stem cells and other cellular products. ÜSKÖKMER's ultimate goal is to be a center that responds not only to Turkey's needs but also to Europe in the field of stem cells and treatment. In line with this goal, ÜSKÖKMER's basic R&D infrastructure installation (stem cell culture and proteomics laboratories) was established with the financial support of our university. In the following stages, project studies were initiated with national and international supports to establish GMP infrastructure for the production of stem cells and cellular products for clinical applications to develop tissue engineering, stem cells, and drug transport systems, to establish R&D production and application infrastructure in the fields of medical diagnostics (development of biosensors for early diagnosis of diseases, biomarker detection, etc.) and personalized treatment.