Invitrogen develops new technology to promote safer stem cell therapies

Invitrogen, a division of Life Technologies, has announced a new technology to enable the development of safer stem cell therapies. Dynabeads SSEA-4 addresses a key challenge in translational research, by separating undifferentiated stem cells from those that are differentiated. Scientists from Invitrogen and the Buck Institute for Age Research, located in Novato, California, collaborated in developing this innovative solution that depletes greater than 99 % of undifferentiated human embryonic stem cells from differentiated populations. They are presenting data on this new technology at the International Society for Cellular Therapy Meeting in San Diego.

Human embryonic stem cell research is one of the fastest growing areas in cell biology. These cells have unlimited proliferative capacity and can differentiate into multiple types, providing an infinite resource for many potential translational medicine applications. A key issue for translational stem cell researchers is the ability to reliably identify and isolate undifferentiated hESCs, which are not considered as suitable for transplantation as those which are differentiated, because of the potential of unregulated cell growth. Their objective is to obtain pure and homogenous cell populations, which will help to ensure the safe development and manufacturing of therapeutics.

Dynabeads SSEA-4 achieves this by utilising magnetic beads that latch onto a common marker on embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells, removing them from a culture in less than 45 minutes. This leaves behind highly pure and differentiated cells that are unaffected by the process. This is a significant advancement over typical protocols, which leave a considerable amount of contaminating cells behind.

Paul Pickering, General Manager of Invitrogen Cell Therapy Systems Business at Life Technologies, “Dynabeads SSEA-4 is an innovative and highly effective solution that addresses one of the key challenges in the development of safer stem cell therapies. It was made possible through the collaboration of several technologies and business groups from different parts of the company coming together to offer a single solution to a problem faced by many of our stem cell customers.”

Xianmin Zeng, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Buck Institute, “Using Dynabeads SSEA-4, we are able to deplete greater than 99% of pluripotent cells in neural cell populations derived from pluripotent cells, which are likely targets for transplant therapy for neurodegenerative disorders.”