"Efforts will be made to further improve this novel culture protocol, trying to increase the number of differentiated cells or to guide the differentiation into particular cell types by adding certain growth factors to this system," says Van Haute. The team may start with fibroblast growth factors, which are important in the developing lung, to test whether their addition to the culture medium influences the differentiation pattern.

Van Haute continues, "hESC have the capacity to differentiate in vivo and in vitro into cells from all three germ lineages, making them particularly important in developmental biology, regenerative medicine and in vitro pharmacological studies. hESC lines carrying a monogenic disease affecting the lung, such as cystic fibrosis, are available. This novel technique can be used on these affected hESC lines and provide researchers with putatively clinically relevant tools to develop in vitro models for these diseases."

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