I-Corps: Xeno-free synthetic coatings for growth and derivation of human pluripotent stem cells

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of reproducible synthetic substrates for the pluripotent stem cell market. This technology may provide a stem cell researcher with the ability to grow cells on a substrate and more readily replicate the results with the assurance that the cells can be safely delivered to patients. This method may produce new treatments for chronic diseases in patients while decreasign the time to governmental approvals for the therapeutic uses of stem cells. Current substrates vary from batch to batch due to the nature of their derivation, but the proposed technology seeks to produce the same substrate over and over, with minimal variation, providing reproducibility. This reproducibility may generate treatments to help millions of individuals.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a synthetic substrate and method that is reproducible, is eady to use, reduces the time to effective treatment, and sustains the derivation and long-term culture of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) in an undifferentiated state without genetic abnormalities and equal genetic profile. The interest in the public and private sector in producing hPSCs at a large scale has grown significantly due to the potential benefits that these cells bring to regenerative medicine. However, stem cell translation from the laboratory to medical applications has been slow because the substrates used for growing the cells are not xenogenic-free (xeno-free), not reproducible, and not chemically defined; This results in cultures with non-consistent quality. The goal of this project is to resolve this problem in the stem cell ecosystem. The proposed substrate allows the growth of hPSCs in a xeno-free and defined environment with high reproducibility resulting in methods which may save time and effort. If succesasful, academic stem cell research labs, clinical labs, bio-banks, pharmaceutical manufacturerers, and bioengineering companies will be certain that they are producing cells free of any cross-contamination and ready for direct use in regenerative medicine.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.