Laboratory for stem cells

The Faculty of Dentistry in Belgrade, as the leading scientific research institution in the field of dentistry in the country, works daily to improve existing and introduce new scientific methods in order to improve the quality of the scientific process and apply scientific results in practice. One of the spheres of interest of our Laboratory is certainly extracellular vesicles (EVs), i.e. the research of their role in the pathogenesis of malignant head and neck diseases, as well as their potential applications in regenerative medicine. In the past period of time, we tried to enrich our Laboratory with equipment for the isolation and characterization of extracellular vesicles.

At the moment, the Laboratory is working on the optimization of exosome isolation using active magnetic sorting, i.e. MACS technologies. After the EV isolation, the obtained exosomes are characterized using the Western blot technique and the flow cytometry method (CD9, CD63). Isolation of EVs was planned from tumor cells and different mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) of dental origin. The main areas of research are the examination of the role of EVs in tumor biology, which implies the examination of EV content, with special emphasis on small non-coding RNAs, communication between tumor cells and their environment, etc. Also, an important direction of the Laboratory’s work is the use of exosomes obtained from MMĆ for the purpose of regeneration and repair of various tissues in the maxillofacial region.

prof. dr Jelena Milašin