Research and Development of Automated Pluripotent Stem Cell Propagation

Stem cells are at the forefront of modern medicine and are expected to revolutionize both the human and veterinary healthcare industries. Currently, a major obstacle to the field is the time-consuming and costly technical time spent growing and maintaining various stem cell populations. The degree of contamination with non-stem cells, ability of the stem cells to thrive and grow, and quality of the stem cells depends largely on the skill of the technician. Providing a cost efficient and completely reproducible approach to the mass production of research and therapeutically bound stem cells ultimately requires mechanization and automation of the processes. The proposed research would seek to collaborate with industry to develop a fully automated apparatus capable of maintaining and propagating pluripotent stem cells in vitro. The proposed apparatus would be of great interest to both academic research, focused on pluripotent stem cells, and to industrial applications of the technology to the healthcare field.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. Dean Betts

Student:

Jonathan Teichroeb

Partner:

Discipline:

Pharmacy / Pharmacology

Sector:

Life sciences

University:

Western University

Program: