Cell Guidance Systems Blog

When plants are moved to a new location, they benefit from compost to help put down roots and become established. The compost provides a depot of nutrients that encourages root growth and accelerates the development of the plant. Similarly, survival agents are small molecules (chemicals) or proteins (particularly growth factors) that have a similar function in cell culture and cell implantation. They go beyond regular maintenance, helping cells during the process of adaptation to the new environment and getting through crisis periods before becoming established. Survival agents are used in 2D, 3D and in-vivo.

Using CRISPR-Cas9 and related technologies, the human genome can now be edited with relative ease. However, these techniques carry a significant risk in therapeutic applications (gene therapy and cell therapy) of unwanted off-target effects. For example, insertion of DNA near to an oncogene could activate it and cause cancer.

The invention of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology in 2006 by Shinya Yamanaka was a big moment for stem cell therapeutics. Using a cocktail of transcription factors to turn the clock back on (almost) any cell to its pluripotent past enables essentially unlimited quantities of any cell type to be made. iPSCs are similar to embryonic stem cells (ESCs) that had been isolated several years earlier. However, ESCs are derived from an early-stage embryo, so come with a lot of ethical baggage. Too much for many countries which simply banned the technique. As well as simpler ethics, iPSCs can be made using a patient’s own cells, enabling autologous cell therapy.

Cytokines/growth factors are large, related groups of highly potent proteins which affect cell fate. Cytokine potency is counter-balanced by relatively short half-lives. This ephemeral nature produces spatiotemporal effects by limiting duration of cytokine bioactivity and therefore the distance they can travel within tissues.

Exo-spinâ„¢ SEC columns can be used as a stand-alone product or as part of a combined strategy for isolating small EVs. CellGS offers pre-packed and equilibrated ready-to-use SEC columns. With the pore size of the resin being approximately 30 nm, Exo-spinâ„¢ SEC columns offer a highly pure exosome elution ready for any downstream application.