Babraham firm launches new culture medium - News - Life Sciences - Business Weekly

HOME

Babraham firm launches new culture medium

Written by News Desk

Friday, 06 June 2008

Stem Cell Sciences plc at Babraham has launched a new culture medium for embryonic stem cell research.

Culticell iSTEM, a novel, serum-free, feeder-free embryonic stem (ES) cell research media product, maintains cells in their basal, pluripotent state. Basically, this provides researchers with a purer starting point for investigating the biological potential of ES cells.

The development of Culticell iSTEM was based on pioneering work of Professor Austin Smith, a scientific founder of SCS, and his team at The Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research, Cambridge University. The research was published in Nature (Vol. 453, No.7194). Prof Smith’s research found that self-renewal properties of ES cells are innate and can be maintained by providing a neutralised culture environment, without needing to add external stimulation from cytokines and growth factors.

Since mouse ES cells were first described more than 26 years ago, they have been cultured and derived using combinations of feeder cells, cytokines, growth factors, hormones and serum.

Prof Smith’s research suggests these additives were shielding the true nature of the ES cells and are not required to maintain pluripotency (the potential of a cell to develop into more than one type of mature cell, depending on environment).

The research also demonstrated that ES cells with greater purity can be cultured by blocking external signals in the culture environment to pERK, a protein that triggers differentiation, instead of providing an external stimulus to activate the signalling protein STAT3 to block differentiation.
SCS’s Culticell iSTEM provides all these elements in one product.

“Professor Smith’s research is a major step forward in embryonic stem cell research and elucidates some of the early mechanisms involved in self-renewal and differentiation,” noted Dr Tim Allsopp, chief scientific officer of Stem Cell Sciences.

“We have now leveraged this significant advance into our novel media product Culticell iSTEM, which we believe will help provide researchers with a more pure starting point for embryonic stem cell research.”