Human embryonic stem (ES) cells have recently become available as research tools as the result of their successful establishment in vitro from human blastocysts. These cells are pluripotent, i.e they can differentiate to many somatic cell types and they have the capacity of unlimited replication in vitro. These characteristics make human ES cells valuable for studies of early developmental processes and cell fate specification, commitment and differentiation. In addition, it is envisioned that human ES cells may be used in future stem cell based therapies as vehicles or for the replacement of damaged cells or tissues.
The aim of this application is to establish the infrastructure needed to produce and distribute human ES cells listed on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Stem Cell Registry and hence make these cells available to other researches worldwide. It is important that the number of human ES cell lines available for NIH funded and other researchers increases in order to meet the increasing demand and to offer a range of different genetic backgrounds of the stem cell lines. Cell Therapeutics Scandinavia AB (CTS) was founded for the purpose of exploring and developing stem cell technologies and for bringing stem cell therapies from bench to bed. To accomplish the aim of this application, CTS wishes to establish a dedicated laboratory, staffed with well trained personnel for the production of characterized cultures of human ES cells under stringent quality control processes (GLP). In addition, CTS will attempt to perform clonal expansion of the human ES cells at various passages in order to derive characterized subclones, which should provide a valuable supplement to the maternal ES cell line. Furthermore, in order to increase the success rate for recipients in establishing their own research programs, CTS wilt provide support services including hands-on training, detailed laboratory manuals, and a technical support website. The ongoing research at CTS and its collaborators is expected to continuously improve the culture technologies for human ES cells; these developments will also be provided to the scientific community.
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