The NYSCF Global Stem Cell Array
The NYSCF Laboratory is developing The NYSCF Global Stem Cell Array (Array), which, for the first time, manufactures standardized cells that act as human disease models. Specifically, the Array captures the full spectrum of genetic and ethnic diversity within the human population as stem cell lines. Both healthy donors and diseased patients contribute skin and/or blood. Automated robotic technologies and proprietary protocols transform these samples into standardized, high-quality stem cell lines (i.e. induced pluripotent stem cells or iPSCs), which may thereafter be reprogrammed into other cell types (e.g. heart cells, liver cells, and brain cells). These cells provide a platform by which researchers can study basic biological development and disease progression.
Researchers may anticipate, on a large scale, how people from genetically diverse backgrounds respond to new drugs—in other words, conduct “clinical trials in a dish.” For the first time, potential drug metabolism and toxicity issues are identified in advance of human clinical trials. Additionally, the Array facilitates the customization of drugs and the creation of cell therapies to match a person’s own genetic type, increasing the likelihood of drug success and decreasing the odds of adverse effects.
Read more about this topic: NYSCF
Famous quotes containing the words global, stem, cell and/or array:
“The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a “global village” instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)
“The lotus’ stem is as long as the depth of water,
So men’s height is just as great as their inner strength.”
—Tiruvalluvar (c. 5th century A.D.)
“Women have no wilderness in them,
They are provident instead,
Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts
To eat dusty bread.”
—Louise Bogan (1897–1970)
“Any one who knows what the worth of family affection is among the lower classes, and who has seen the array of little portraits stuck over a labourer’s fireplace ... will perhaps feel with me that in counteracting the tendencies, social and industrial, which every day are sapping the healthier family affections, the sixpenny photograph is doing more for the poor than all the philanthropists in the world.”
—Macmillan’s Magazine (London, September 1871)