Charles University Prague

Charles University (Univerzita Karlova v Praze) was founded in 1348. It hosts 42,000 students (one in five of all Czech students) across 17 faculties and over 600 departments. It earns over 25% of all income from competitive research.

The Mesenchymal Stem Cells team at the Department of Histology and Embryology is part of the Faculty of Medicine of Charles University, based at Hradec Kralove, outside Prague. The team focuses on the isolation of MSCs from bone marrow, dental pulp and periodontal ligament, their subsequent culturing in-vitro, their phenotypic analysis and differentiation. The CUNI group has particular expertise in cell culturing and media; CUNI is leading PurStem's research towards the adoption of culture media which are free of bovine serum.

CUNI's involvement in PurStem is led by Dr Tomas Soukup. Dr Soukup has five years of experience and several publications in the area and is the co-author of the patent "Method of cultivation of hMSCs, particularly for the treatment of non-healing fractures, and bioreactor for carrying out this cultivation method".

CUNI in PurStem
The team at Charles University will contribute to the scientific work of every stage of the project, sharing and gaining knowledge and experience in common with all the partners. A particular emphasis will be on the development of serum-free culture medium, driving both MSC growth and MSC differentiation.