ITI Life Sciences initiates

A new £9.5m r&d programme has been launched by ITI Life Sciences, of Dundee, Scotland, to develop an automated process to produce high-quality human stem cells. This development will put Scotland at the forefront of stem cell research as well as bringing closer the use of stem cells as therapeutics.

As part of this three-year programme, Swedish biotech company Cellartis, the world's largest provider of ethically-derived human embryonic stem cell (hES) lines, is setting up an r&d and manufacturing facility in Dundee. The ITI programme will also involve the University of Glasgow, which brings world-class expertise in the molecular mechanisms that control cell signalling and development. The work will be carried out by the University's Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Biomedical and Life Sciences.

In bringing together this programme, ITI Life Science hopes to solve some of the main problems associated with producing high volumes of quality stem cells. The programme will use pre-existing hES cell lines. This phase of the programme will be deemed a success if it results in a robust and standardised procedure for generating multiple human cell lines of interest to the pharmaceutical industry from undifferentiated hES cells.

Such cells will enable pharmaceutical companies to test new drug candidates for activity and toxicity in biologically and disease-relevant human cells. ITI Life Sciences will own all intellectual property generated by the programme.

'We believe this area to have vast potential both for improving the drug development process, and longer term, for enabling the development of effective cell therapies and regenerative medicine,' said Dr Eleanor Mitchell, ITI Life Sciences' acting ceo. 'This first phase will, we hope, result in a robust and scaleable technology for producing human stem cells and we have the opportunity to further expand the programme should certain milestones be achieved.'