Development grant
A consortium of three Scottish companies has backing for a £1 million project to develop new tools for drug discovery.
Avanticell Science, a specialist in cell biology and cell culture will lead the consortium, working with Giltech Limited, a specialist in biomaterials and controlled delivery and Culzean Medical Devices Ltd, which designs and manufactures implantable medical products.
The two year project is co-funded by the UK Technology Strategy Board. The aim is to create a new generation of three-dimensional cell-based assays.
Current cell-based drug tests use conventional flat layers of cell cultures, which have limitations in that they do not precisely mimic the behaviour of cells in the body.
Avanticell will combine its cell culture technology with Giltech’s and Culzean’s bio-engineering expertise to put living cells into a three dimensional scaffold natural products.
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