Personalized stem cell therapy is in the forefront of medical advances. Using cultured clones of a patient’s own cells, medical scientists can develop personalized stem cell treatments, produce antibodies for vaccines and grow skin replacement patches and other types of human tissue for medical implants.
Two leading Central Ohio bioscience companies –
Nanofiber Solutions and
Celartia – have teamed up to develop a new cell culturing system – PetakaG3 NanoMatrix. The system accelerates personalized stem cell therapies by enhancing stem cell expansion rates.
A petaka is a cell culture device with all the air space inside the chamber eliminated, which enables cells to grow on all internal surfaces. Nanofiber Solutions and Celartia added nanofibers to this closed, sterile environment to create PetakaG3 NanoMatrix.
“With regenerative medicine, the big issues are cell expansion rates and cell extraction rates – how quickly you can grow them and how many you can harvest,” explains Ross Kayuha, ceo of Nanofiber Solutions. “The PetakaG3 NanoMatrix is a significant first step in making personalized stem cell treatments possible in days versus weeks, as is the case now.”
He notes that there’s a growing trend in medicine and life science research to use three-dimensional cell culturing products to grow and study cells. “The body provides a 3-D environment for cells, but so much basic research in labs is performed on flat 2-D surfaces, which is a very unrealistic environment,” Kayuha says. “The PetakaG3 NanoMatrix is a tool at the intersection of personalized medicine and regenerative medicine that clinicians can use to perform cell-based analyses and develop stem-cell treatments.”
According to Emilio Barbera-Guillem, M.D., Ph.D., ceo of Celartia, “This PetakaG3-plus- nanofibers technology is important for direct applications for regenerative medicine and also new pharmaceutical discoveries and production.” Research centers, regenerative medicine centers and pharmaceutical companies will be primary purchasers of the new product, he notes.
PetakaG3 NanoMatrix was publicly introduced in December 2012 at the American Society for Cell Biology and will soon be available for worldwide distribution.
Sources: Ross Kayuha, Nanofiber Solutions
Dr. Emilio Barbera-Guillem, Celartia
Writer: Lynne Meyer