WiCell is the nonprofit subsidiary of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) created in 1998 to promote research in human embryonic stem cells.
In 1998, James Thomson was the first researcher to successfully isolate human embryonic stem cells.
WiCell is the owner of six stem cell lines are listed on the National Institute of Health's stem cell registry, which makes them available for federal funding. WiCell is also the home of the National Stem Cell Bank (NSCB), established on September 30, 2005 by the NIH to acquire, characterize and distribute the 21 human embryonic stem cell lines and their sub-clones available for use in federally funded research programs and to provide technical support to the hES cell research community. In conjunction with NSCB activities, WiCell provides comprehensive hands-on technical training in the culture of its human embryonic stem cell lines.
WiCell licenses use of its stem cells to nonprofit researchers for $500. Researchers are then free to publish and patent discoveries. Commercialization, however, requires a different license from WARF.
Famous quotes containing the word cell:
“It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)