Licensing opportunity
Scientists at Edinburgh University have developed a simple and inexpensive method for differentiating human embryonic stem cells (hESC) into mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), generating multipotent cells with a capacity for growth and which retain the potential to form adult cell lineages.
Mesenchymal stem cells, a progenitor of bone, adipose, cartilage, muscle, cardiomyocytes and connective tissue, are usually isolated from adult bone marrow. These cells are often aged and/or diseased and expansion is limited as they can usually only be passaged up to five times.
The new method takes hESCs, grown under standard self-renewal conditions, and uses hyaluronic acid to induce differentiation into multipotent hMSCs. By passage ten, all markers of undifferentiated hESCs are lost and replaced by markers of hMSCs. This finding has been reproduced with five hESC lines.
The MSCs thus derived have been demonstrated to generate mineral-depositing osteoblast-like cells after around 20 passages.
This simple, low-cost method is not reliant on the expensive and/or complex formulation of growth factors or cytokines. In contrast to adult-derived cells, the cells produced by this method can proliferate and are disease-free. In addition, multipotent stem cells do not have the potential tumorigenic properties of pluripotent stem cells.
Applications include hMSC media development; generating hMSC or differentiated derivatives, for modelling, drug screening and allogeneic cell transplants.
A patent entitled “Method for differentiation of stem cells” (Ref. No. PCT/GB2006/000800) has been filed with a priority date of 3rd March 2005.
Edinburgh University is seeking commercial partners to license this stem cell technology for the applications described.
Research or therapeutic grade human mesenchymal stem cell-like cells, or terminally differentiated derivatives, can be provided.
For more information, visit the project’s website at: http://www.university-technology.com/details/simple-and-cost-effective-method-to-generate-multi-lineage-mesenchymal-stem-cells
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