Stem Cell R&D

Stem cells represent the most recent phase of the biotechnology revolution in medicine. Their significance is based on an understanding of how all cells develop from ES cells into adult tissues.

Knowledge of these processes, together with the development of technologies for the manipulation of the growth and differentiation of stem cells, and their genetic modification, will enable these cells to be used as a potentially unlimited biological resource for cell-based human discovery tools for drug discovery and toxicity testing.

Cellartis is a hES cell technology company with a significant capacity to develop technologies for use in the drug discovery and toxicity testing. Cellartis’ core competencies:

  • A unique and well characterized hES cell bank that provides the base material for the company’s projects and activities.
  • A proven and solid know-how of both patented and proprietary hES cell technologies.
  • Direct and indirect access to state-of-the-art industrial and academic collaborations and networks.
  • A developing core competence in producing pure populations of phenotypically and functionally characterised specialised cells.
  • Substantial leveraged benefit in technology development for future cell-based screening and cell-based therapies through the direct overlap in technology requirements for obtaining the functional cells for drug discovery and toxicology testing purposes.

OVERVIEW OF PROJECT ACTIVITIES

Cellartis has three directly product-oriented core projects where the aim of these projects is to:
  • Develop functional hepatocytes derived from hES cells
  • Develop functional cardiomyocytes derived from hES cells

APPLICATIONS PROJECTS

Cellartis has also developed and implemented technology that allows scaled up pluripotent hES cell production cells for industrial applications. We also have the goal to use the in-house existing well-functional cells and develop applications of interest to Cellartis and its customers. Today, undifferentiated hES cells fulfil this criteria and one major project uses these undifferentiated cells to develop developmental toxicity applications. A second project using the existing hES cells to create genetically engineered cell lines for a number of applications.