Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

The new technology enables scientists to ‘turn off’ the mechanism which causes propagated ES cells to self-destruct, and will lead to vastly greater numbers of the precious cells becoming available for research.

The licence, financial details of which were undisclosed, will see Babraham-based Stem Cell Sciences (SCS) move to the forefront of its field, supplying stem cells and related technologies to the pharmaceutical industry for drug discovery applications.

SCS CEO, Dr Peter Mountford said: “We anticipate that this discovery will have a very positive impact across the human ES cell field.”

“It will not only transform human ES cell production but will also enhance our ability to engineer human ES cell lines needed by the pharmaceutical industry for specific drug discovery assays.”

The discovery was made by Prof Sasai and his team at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research of the RIKEN Centre for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan. Connections with the academic community in the Southern port city, resulting from SCS’s Asian base in Kobe, played a role in managing to obtain the coveted licence, the firm said.

It was discovered that the onset of cell death, usually associated with the dissociation of cell clusters in order to scale them up, could be blocked by Rho-associated kinase (ROCK) inhibitors.

Research showed that the use of a selective ROCK inhibitor to human ES cells seriously reduced dissociation-induced cell death and increased cloning efficiency by an order of magnitude.

“It is the birth of a new use for stem cells in drug discovery in reproducible ways in which automation is the key,” said chief operations officer, Hugh Ilyine.

“The technology enables us to go forward without feeder layers to support growth, and increases cell viability and reproducibility.”

SCS has made significant investment into its automated division in the Babraham Campus, equipping the unit’s seven staff with instruments from Royston-based TAP to research the future of automated stem cell media provision.

“We have put our money into the belief that Cambridge will become the world leading centre for stem cell research,” said Ilyine.