Abstract

Human paediatric thymus samples were obtained from children who underwent thymectomy as part of corrective cardiac surgery procedure at the University Hospital Centre Zagreb (KBC Rebro, Zagreb). This study has been approved by the Rudjer Boskovic Ethics Committee and Informed consent was collected in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration.

The cells obtained by mechanical and enzimatic digestion and further enriched by magnetic beads depletion were either cultivated in ultralow attachment plastic or frozen for later analysis and thymibank establishment (over 200 thymi collected so far) . The  sphere development is consistent and reliable since this procedure for thymispheres production was repeated and proven effective with more than 100 different thymi and in separate experiments. Thymisphere formation was demonstrated regardless of the patients’ age (from neonatal to 16 years old) or the patients’ sex (58% were male, 42% female). Besides that thymisphere formation from fresh tissues, we have managed to do the same with 20 individual, previously frozen thymi regardless of the time kept at −195.79 °C (77 K) .

Biography

Prof. Mariastefania Antica, PhD,ScymASCP is a Professor at the Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health in Zagreb, Croatia. She earned her doctorate in molecular biology from Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich and has over three decades of experience in stem cell biology, immunology, and cancer research. Formerly a group leader at the Ruđer Bošković Institute, she has coordinated national and EU-funded projects and contributed to major COST Actions. An expert evaluator for Horizon 2020 and other European funding bodies, she is President of the Croatian Immunological Society and EACR Ambassador, with a strong focus on thymic regeneration and immune therapies.