Overview


About Stem Cells

Stem cells are undifferentiated (unspecialised) cells, which can divide to make copies of themselves, or differentiate (change) to become specialised cells of the body such as muscle cells, nerve cells or blood cells.

There are two basic types of stem cells: Embryonic Stem (ES) cells and Adult (also called tissue-specific or somatic) stem cells.  ES cells, derived from a pre-implantation embryo, can grow and differentiate into all specialised cell types found in the body, and due to this ability are referred to as ‘pluripotent'. Tissue-specific stem cells, sourced from body tissue, have a more restricted potential and can usually only differentiate into their own or related cell type and are referred to as ‘multipotent'. In the body these cells facilitate the replacement or repair of diseased or damaged cells in organs such as the gut, skin, brain or pancreas.

Benefits of stem cells:

Stem cells are an important biological resource for the advancement of human medicine, because they can be grown in large quantities and yet still produce all cell types found in the body. Stem cells can provide an important benefit to humans via:

  • Gene and drug discovery
  • Testing the function of the large number of genes generated from the Human Genome Project
  • Testing millions of potential new drugs in a ‘human environment'
  • Reducing the need for animal testing
  • Studying disease onset and progression (disease modelling)
  • Cell therapy
  • Replacing diseased or damaged cells in patient tissues
  • Correcting genetic disorders (when combined with gene therapy)

The Stem Cell Challenge

The greatest challenge facing the application of stem cells in drug discovery and cell therapy is the limited quality and quantity of cells that are available for research today. SCS' objective is to achieve safe, robust, reproducible stem cell production in the laboratory on a large scale, by utilising knowledge of those molecules and processes that control the growth and differentiation of normal stem cells in the body.

Today, human and animal cells are already being applied in drug discovery and research but these are often either cancer-like cells, grown in laboratory dishes, or tissue-specific cells, lifted from human or animal donors. The use of cancer-like cells does not form an attractive template on which to test novel drugs. Unlike stem cells, they are not 'normal' cells and are thought to be un-representative of the context in which the drug will act (unless for cancer). The utilisation of donor tissuespecific cells, although representative, is proving restrictive due to limitations in supply and variation between cell batches sourced from different donors. Only Embryonic Stem (ES) cells and a few types of tissue-specific stem cells currently demonstrate robust, stable growth in the laboratory.

Stem Cell Sciences, through the development of its cell culture systems and technologies, has established a methodology to solve this problem and produce safe, robust and reproducible stem cells. Proprietary cell cultures (media) have been formulated to enable the growth and differentiation of stem cells. In contrast to current industry standards, the Company's media are serum-free and fully defined. This means they contain no uncharacterised components that induce batch-to-batch variability in stem cell performance. Unlike its predecessors, these media are free from animal serum and ensures growth of cells in the absence of 'feeder' cells in the case of mouse ES cells.  Feeder cells are helper cells added to cultures to provide for an adequate control over stem cell growth via production of poorly defined growth factors. Animal serum and feeder cells are known sources of undesirable agents affecting stem cell performance and safety, making such cells less suitable for clinical use.

Stem Cells v. Tissue Cells - The Difference

Stem Cells

  • Unspecialised cells found in small numbers in either embryos or tissues
  • Can grow indefinitely in culture
  • Primary source of all cells in the body
  • Can provide an unlimited supply of defined, uniform cell types

Tissue Cells

  • Specialised cells isolated from organs/tissues
  • Very limited ability to grow in culture; usually don't grow
  • Limited or no ability to generate or replace cells
  • Limited by the quantity of cells originally isolated and cannot be expanded

Stem Cell Sciences' NS Cell

SCS' Neural Stem (NS) cell is the first tissue-specific cell that has been identified that can grow stably in the laboratory as a pure population of stem cells and without ongoing differentiation.

The new cells can be readily grown in monolayer, serum-free conditions. The NS cell is a cell type that can be grown indefinitely in fully defined culture media, developed by Stem Cell Sciences. It is a cell type that shows maintenance of stable biological potency after prolonged periods in culture. Due to their homogenous nature and relative ease of derivation, NS cells offer significant potential in many areas of biomedical research.

NS cells can be grown to a high production standard, facilitating their early introduction into pre-clinical cell therapy research for treatment of major unmet central nervous system (CNS) diseases. These programmes provide the foundation of Stem Cell Sciences' cell therapy programme. NS cells can differentiate to neurons and glia, and offer a limitless source of cells for cell therapy in conditions such as Parkinson's disease. Therefore, NS cell lines offer potential in many areas of pharmaceutical research in neurological disease and dysfunction, and it is anticipated that they will also be of enormous benefit to the emerging regenerative medicine industry.